White
by DawnieS
Summary: Tess, Michael, and Liz centric, Mi/L. At the end of Four Aliens and a Baby, what if Liz had voted yes? Years later, Michael and Liz are forced to confront the reality of what they did that night, and to tread the thin line between wrong and right.
1. Cast Your Vote

White

Summary: Tess, Michael, and Liz centric, Mi/L, mentions of past M/M and M/L. At the end of _Four Aliens and a Baby_, what if Liz had voted _yes_? Years later, Michael and Liz are forced to confront the reality of what they did that night, and to tread the thin line between wrong and right.

AN: The quotes in this chapter are all taken from one of the final scenes in _Four Aliens and a Baby_. The quotes are out of order and not complete, but hopefully everyone remembers what happened in that episode. If not, it becomes clear in the next chapter anyway.

* * *

><p>Chapter One: Cast Your Vote<p>

"_All right, Liz. Cast your vote, break the tie."_

* * *

><p>White. Everything was white.<p>

It burnt his eyes and left him blind, searching his way around the room by feel rather than sight. It was too stark, too bright, too much of it everywhere, and he could barely breathe here at all. He had never expected white to feel so oppressive, but it did. It weighed down on him, filling him with desperation and fear.

His arm throbbed painfully, and he reached up and ran his fingers over the tiny dot of red that signified where the needle had entered. The needle that contained the chemical that had robbed him of his powers, left him helpless against the men who had brought him here, to this place of white and emptiness.

_They_ had been dressed in black. Black clothing matching black coats and black bullet-proof vests and black masks pulled low over their faces, with only thin slight for the eyes. Black gloves on their hands and black shoes on their feet. The contrast of the two colors – black against white and his eyes burning as he tried to fight back, and for what, what reason, what good would it do? – seared an imprint into his mind, one he would never forget. Black shadows and white walls.

He was trapped here.

"_Maria!"_

_She turned, but too late, and his cry of warning, of protest against the inevitable, did not stop the bullets. Did not stop the red that spread out across her clothing as her eyes turned towards him, smiling painfully through tears as though there was any reason at all to hope._

"_No… no… no, please, no… Maria…" A whisper. A plea. A prayer. None of it mattered, nothing could be done. It was too late, too late…_

"Mr. Guerin," a voice said, and he turned. Turned and stared as the white shifted and gave way to color. To a man standing near the door, to a pair of green eyes focused on him with clinical amusement.

A guttural growl escaped his throat. These men had trapped him here, these men had taken his powers, taken his family, taken Maria…

Animalistic rage rushed through him. He would kill them. He would _kill_ them.

But no movement was fast enough here. Nothing could be done against these men, nothing could stop the green eyes from staring at him with revulsion and contempt. Hands grasped him, fingers wrapping around his arms, nails biting into his skin. He struggled but it was all in vain and the colors blended together, black and green combining and then fading, growing lighter and lighter until everything…

Until everything turned to white.

* * *

><p>"<em>Michael?<em>

"_Do it. Turn her in."_

* * *

><p>The lights were off. The darkness turned the room to gray and he stared up at the ceiling. It was calmer now, and the silence no longer filled his mind with pain, the sight of the blank walls no longer bit into his eyes liked acid. The quiet was not oppressive, but it was still somber, and it gave him time to think.<p>

There was something running through his veins, keeping him trapped.

There was something snapping down on his wrists, restraints of some sort, and his head was immobile as when he pushed and pulled something pressed down on his throat – a rope, a cord, a metal bar… did it really matter what it was? – and he couldn't breathe.

"Relax, Mr. Guerin," a voice said, gentle and soft and filled with sympathy that made him squirm and shift and struggle even harder because there was still something so _wrong_ about all of this…

And this voice. He did not trust this voice. This voice that promised comfort and concern and care.

There was no comfort here. These people had taken everything from him, everything that mattered. They gray was soft and gentle and he closed his eyes for a moment, and remembered…

_The gray of the dismal sky had covered them all, clouds hiding the sun. Gray that matched the mood, the knowledge of the inevitable. There was nothing he could do, not now. Nothing any of them could do._

_Kyle had stumbled to his knees, unable to stand the onslaught, and he had wanted to cry out, wanted to tell the human boy to get back up and fight. But what could be done? They could not win. _

Shadows moved in the gray room, and suddenly he longed for white. The white, at least, yielded the truth. It was too bright and so painful and nothing made sense there, but this softness was dangerous and he wanted to return to that terror from before because at least he had known what that was.

"Shh…" the voice whispered, sweet and dripping with honey…

_You catch more flies with honey than vinegar,_ Maria's voice said in his mind.

"…you'll be here for a long time."

* * *

><p>"<em>Wait, let me get this straight. If the baby doesn't need you to survive, then we can kill you."<em>

"_Michael…"_

"_We could. But the Air Force would still be looking for an alien. Looking for us."_

* * *

><p>"Where are the others?"<p>

He saw the red of blood spilling out across the floor – was it his? Did it matter? Would it stain the floor red, would it ever wash out? – and heard the question repeated again and again. But there was a fog in his mind and nothing made sense. He was disoriented and the words washed over him and faded into nothing as he continued to stare at the red.

_Isabel's shirt had been stained with red and her eyes had looked up at him and he'd wanted to say he was sorry._

"Where are they?"

He was cold and he tasted something metallic in his mouth and the figure standing over him had only a hazy outline and then the black…

Black gloves, black clothes, black shoes, black socks.

…and the cold green eyes that demanded answers he didn't have to questions he didn't understand.

"Mr. Guerin, answer me. I can make the pain stop if you just _answer_."

His fingers were covered in red and he looked down and saw the outline of his hand on the floor. A bloody print against the too bright white of this too sterile room.

Would they clean up the blood when they were done?

_Isabel's eyes had fixed on his face and not left, not wavered, not even once. She'd reached out her hand and he'd taken her fingers and he'd watched as she stared at him, continued to stare at him through the pain and the fear and then…_

"Where are they?"

"Dead," he spat. "You killed them. You killed them."

"Maybe you will be more cooperative tomorrow," the voice said, and then the green eyes disappeared and pain exploded through every part of his body.

* * *

><p>"<em>No. They would throw her in a white room and study her like a lab rat for the rest of her life. I've been there. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." <em>

* * *

><p>"What do you want from me?"<p>

There was nothing he would tell them, nothing he could tell them. And what did any of it matter? Didn't they know, didn't they _understand_?

They were gone. Everyone he had ever cared about was gone.

His body hurt, a slow steady ache, icy cold and burning heat, sensations that traveled through every part of him and left him gasping for breath. There were no windows in the all the white, and no clocks. No way to tell the passing of time, nothing to connect him to the outside world. If the outside world existed at all.

The prick of needles on his skin, the electricity that jumped from the cables to his worn body, the burning of fire and the taste of blood. Didn't they know that none of it could hurt him more than his own memories?

"_Michael! Look out!"_

_Something hit him hard, knocking him out of the way. Max stood above him for a moment, just a split-second, and then the explosion happened. The burst of yellow and orange and the sudden reverberation of noise and power and energy and Max was falling…_

"Where are the rest of your kind, Mr. Guerin," the voice said, so cold and so calculating so clinically amused. Green eyes stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"I'm not the enemy," he snarled, the words catching in his throat. He forced them out, forced himself to talk, even though he knew it would do no good.

Max had been here once, and they all knew what had happened then. There was no reasoning with these people, there was no way out of this room. Certainly not by _their_ grace, and not even by _his_ own strength and _his_ own wits. There was no escape, not this time.

He was alone.

His throat was raw from yelling, from the screams of pain and fury and rage that ripped from his throat every time they drew near. And his skin was covered in blood – red, always red, didn't they see that he bled just as they did? – and his hair was matted with sweat and he knew… he knew…

This is what the white room was. This is what the people here did. It was wrong, all wrong, and he wanted – needed – a moment to breathe, to think, to sleep.

"You'll tell us, Mr. Guerin. In the end, you'll break. But I can be patient. Time is on my side, after all."

* * *

><p>"<em>If the Air Force wants an alien, then why don't we just give them one?"<em>

"_What? Turn her in?"_

"_Yeah, then they won't be looking for an alien and they'll leave us alone."_

* * *

><p>He felt himself dragged from the room and forced open his eyes to confront the faint cream-colored walls and flesh colored hands that held him – no gloves, not now, not this time – and the reflection of his own haggard face in the pristine surface of the mahogany brown floor.<p>

He was tossed roughly into another room – dark, too dark to see anything – and the door slammed shut behind him. Taking away the white walls and the gray shadows and the green eyes and the black clothes.

Something shuffled across the floor.

A pair of blue eyes focused on him. "Michael?" the voice whispered, rough from lack of use and yet so incredibly familiar.

"Tess?"

* * *

><p>"<em>All right, Liz. Cast your vote, break the tie."<em>

"_I vote 'yes'."_


	2. Abandon All Hope

Chapter Two: Abandon All Hope

_Through me you go to the grief-wracked city;  
>Through me you go to everlasting pain;<br>Through me you pass among lost souls.  
>Justice inspired my exalted Creator:<br>I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love.  
>Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally.<br>Abandon all hope, Ye Who Enter Here_

- Dante's Inferno (inscription on the Gates of Hell)

* * *

><p>They had brought here her, to this place. To this room of white and clinical precision and horrifying science. She knew it had been years, maybe longer than that. Time bled together, no distinction between each second, each minute. And at some point, she had lost touch with reality, and the lines that separated past, present, and future had all disappeared. She did not know the date or the time.<p>

She knew almost nothing.

Her name. She clung to that through the endless hours, clung to it with a fury and determination that she never knew she had. They could take everything else from her, but they would not take that.

Still, she had not heard it spoken in – how much time had passed? Years, decades, centuries? – a very long time. In the beginning, they had called her by name. But when she wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know, even that had changed. She was no longer an adversary worthy of a name, or of their fear. She was only something to be studied.

Until he came.

The darkness of the room could not hide the shocked look on his features as he met her gaze. She reached out one hand, tentative at first. Was he real? Or was this all a hallucination? A dream of some sort.

A nightmare?

She had no idea.

He looked different. Older. Tired. His clothes were covered with blood and the lines in his face had deepened and stretched out, making him appear almost elderly. But there was a hardness to him, rough edges and sharp angles, that spoke of unbearable agony. Physical, yes, but emotional, too.

She whispered his name.

"Michael?"

"Tess?"

She nodded. Her hand touched his shoulder. It was solid, and it felt real. He felt real.

He flinched and drew back. "What are you…?" And then he stopped. His eyes narrowed at her and she couldn't read his expression. What did he see when he looked at her? She didn't know, didn't want to know. She had not looked at her own reflection in nearly as long as _they_ had not spoken her name. She did not want to see what this place had done to her.

He crawled to his hands and knees, eyes still fixed on her. She stared back and lowered her arm, letting it fall to the floor. She had recognized the men who had brought him here, just as she recognized the haunted look in his eyes and the way he hunched over now, curling in on himself. He had been to the white room, too.

She did not expect the bitter satisfaction that she felt at that realization. But it was there, strong and sure and filled with venom. Let him feel this pain for once. Let him understand what he had done to her, what they had all done to her, all those years ago. Let him rot in this place, let him curse his own existence.

"You should have killed me," she whispered, her voice flat. "It would have been kinder."

"Where am I?" he said to himself, his voice quiet, ignoring her comment, ignoring her. He did not look at her, and she thought perhaps he wouldn't. He seemed to want to forget her presence entirely, as if that was possible. As if they were not both prisoners in this place, prisoners of this same fate.

"Abandon all hope," she said, her voice as quiet at his. But he had been filled with curiosity and faith, as though there was an escape, any escape, and she was empty. Completely empty, because not even death could set them free from this place.

There was no possibility for death. _They_ wanted their subjects alive.

* * *

><p>Michael did not speak. Tess didn't seem to mind, and she moved away from him, disappearing into the shadows of the room. He propped himself up as best he could, then gathered all of his strength and stumbled his feet. Dizziness washed over him and the room began to spin and before he could stop himself he had fallen back to the floor. His body crashed onto the cold ground with a heavy thud and he hissed as pain rushed through his side.<p>

Tess watched him impassively.

_You should have killed me_, she had said. A shiver ran down his spine even as he forced himself back to his hands and knees and crawled towards the door. Would he give up, too? Would this place break him?

He reached out and touched the door. A sudden jolt of electricity burnt his finger tips and he inhaled sharply, only just managing to keep the cry of shock and pain from escaping his lips. He rocked backwards, nearly falling over, and raised his fingers to his mouth, blowing on them. As though that would somehow stop the pain.

He wasn't sure what time it was. Night or day? How long had he been here? He had no powers, not with the chemical flowing through his veins. But even if he had had them, would he have been able to do anything? His body hurt from the electrical shot, from the cuts over his torso, from the bruises that mottled his skin. He was tired and hungry and confused and…

And alone.

He looked at Tess. In the darkness, all he could see was the outline of her curls and the distinct blue of her eyes. But he had seen her when they were close enough that she had reached out to touch him, and he remembered. He remembered the paleness of her skin and the shadows under her eyes and the way her hair had grown out, so long that it reached almost to her waist, a mess of unruly curls that would never be tamed. She was thin, skin stretched over bones, body gaunt, ribs visible through the thin fabric of her shirt…

Nothing like he remembered from before.

But he didn't want to think about _before_. It was too complicated, and filled with too many memories. Maria's voice still whispered in the silence of his mind, and he caught the scent of her perfume lingering in the air.

"Where are we? What is this place?" he demanded, his voice scratchy. His throat was raw from screaming, and each syllable he uttered only increased the ache. But he had to know.

Tess moved further back along the floor, away from him. "Hell," she said.

"Don't… just don't," Michael snarled at her. "I need answers, real answers. Tell me where I am!"

She must have closed her eyes, because the blue orbs were suddenly gone.

"Tess!" he spat, feeling enraged. "Tess! Answer me. _Answer_ me."

"I don't… I don't know…" she whispered. Then her voice suddenly grew loud, echoing off the walls of the room. "Where they took me. Where they took me, that's where we are. What does it matter? What does it matter? There's no way out."

"When did they bring you here?" Michael asked, half-crawling, half-stumbling to her side. He grabbed her arms and dragged her upwards and towards him so that he could see her face. Her eyes snapped open, pupils dilating in fear and then contracting in rage.

She wrenched herself from his grip and kicked out with both feet, sending him sprawling to the ground. "_You_ brought me here."

Michael blinked a few times, then swallowed uneasily. "No… no, we took you to Rogers Air Force Base. This isn't… this can't be the compound."

The compound had been shut down years ago. Jim Valenti had informed them of that, and there had been a question in his voice when he told them, just the tiniest bit of pleading. Michael had heard it and ignored it, but the others must have heard it, too, and they all knew what he wanted.

He wanted to know what had happened to Tess. When the compound closed… had she been there? Had she been moved elsewhere. Or had they moved her in the beginning, long before…

Or was this still the compound, and had it been shut down and converted into a secret military facility?

"You left me there, at the compound," Tess said, her voice brittle. "But I woke up here."

"Where? Where is this place?"

"White," Tess whispered. "White hell."

Michael reached out for her again, and she bared her teeth in a sudden, animalistic gesture. He drew back, surprised and a little afraid. She was glaring at him still, but there was something vindictive in her look as well.

He glanced down at his own burned fingertips. They still throbbed painfully.

"Did you know the door was electric?" he asked.

She said nothing.

"Did you know?" he said again, raising his voice in anger. He reached and grabbed her arms again, ignoring her bared teeth and narrowed gaze. She tensed in his grasp and then reached up and grabbed his wrists, her fingernails biting into his skin, clawing at him.

Her hair ended up in his face and he let go of one arm long enough to brush it aside. His fingers curled in her blonde tresses, yanking her head back from him.

"It's always electric," she whispered hoarsely. "It always has been."

He dropped her to the floor.

"We have to work together," Michael said. "There's no other way, we have to…" He trailed off in distaste, hating the idea of working with Tess again. She was the enemy, had been since she killed Alex and betrayed them all. But they were stuck here, together, and he could not rely on anyone from the outside helping him.

He backed away from Tess, far enough until he could once again see only her eyes.

"You voted _yes_," she said.

Michael tensed. "You _killed_ Alex. You tried to turn us over to Kivar. You're a murderer, Tess! A killer, a traitor…" He stopped, breathless. "You crashed in Roswell, you brought the Air Force after us. It was the only way…" Again, he stopped. "I don't need to defend my actions to _you_."

In the end, it had been Maria, Michael, Isabel, and Liz who had voted against her, and even if Max, Jim, and Kyle had expressed their reluctance at the plan, they had gone along with it. Majority rules.

She had killed Alex. She had betrayed them all. She was the enemy.

But he had no other choice.

"We have to work together," Michael said again.

Tess came closer, crawling along the floor. She was close enough that he could feel her breath on his face, and then she reached up and touched his forehead. "You're bleeding."

He pushed her hand away. "I'm bleeding in a lot of places."

She leaned back, sitting on her heels. "Do you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Michael asked, eyes roaming the room quickly, searching out the source of the noise she apparently recognized.

"Footsteps," she murmured.

He paused, listening. Sure enough, he could hear the faint tread of feet on the hallway outside the room.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

She smiled, a cold, calculating smile that set him on edge. "It means," she hissed, "that they're coming for you." And without warning, she lunged forward and knocked him back, shoving him against the door. Electricity slammed into his back, taking his breath away and making him arch painfully, struggling to escape. Blood pounded in his ears and the world turned a hazy red all around him.

Then the door swung open and he fell onto his back. The bright light of the hallway blinded him, and arms reached down out of the void and grabbed him, pulling him roughly to his feet.

He blinked once and caught sight of Tess kneeling in the room. There were men facing her, too, dressed all in black and armed with tranquilizer guns that were trained on her, ready to knock her unconscious if need be. But she made no move, just stared at him, lips curved into a cruel smirk.

"It's my turn to vote for or against you," she said, "and I vote _yes_."

* * *

><p>He awoke in the room of white again. His clothes were gone, replaced with a hospital gown that did little to keep the cold from working its way into his skin. He was strapped to a chair, unable to move any part of his body.<p>

"Good evening, Mr. Guerin," a voice said softly. "How are you finding your accommodations?"

He strained against the confines of the chair, struggling to lift his head and see the speaker. But the person stayed just beyond his line of vision, a phantom with a cold voice. A voice that Michael recognized, a voice that made him think of amusement and green eyes.

"What do you want from me?" Michael asked.

Something moved behind him, and he raised his eyes as far as they would go. Not far enough, though. All he saw was the emptiness of white.

"What do I want?" the voice said softly. "Ah… such a good question. But perhaps you can tell me."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"It was a pity that your friends had to die," the voice continued. "I would have liked to have them here as well. Perhaps they would have been more cooperative. Perhaps they could have told me what I wanted to know." A hand came into view them, followed by an arm covered in a black sleeve. Cold fingers curled firmly around Michael's arm, pressing painfully into his skin. "But all I have is you."

"Go to hell," Michael spat.

"Hell," the voice answered, "in a singularly human idea. And not just human. Christian. There are, of course, many ideas of hell that predate our own. In fact, all cultures have some form of judgment after death, of a place where the evil go to suffer. For the wicked must be punished in the afterlife, or else why would any of us act good? Pagan beliefs… beliefs found in old Greek and Roman mythology, in the parables and traditions of the Germanic tribes… it's all there. But the modern image the word _hell_ conjures – that of fire and brimstone – is uniquely Christian."

The hand released Michael's arm and drew away, disappearing once again. In it's place, it left a faint bruise. The sound of footsteps echoed in the room, and when the voice spoke again, it came from Michael's left.

"You are not human, Mr. Guerin. The ideas of hell are not yours."

"It's only human arrogance that believes they came up with everything," Michael snarled in response. "Or, rather, _American_ arrogance. What makes you think the idea of hell is yours alone?"

"Ah… so you admit to being something other than human?"

"I admit to nothing. And you still have not told me why you want me here. What do you want from me?"

A hand reached out and slapped him across the face. The stinging blow struck him full in the face, the restrains refusing to allow him to move away, to turn his head to absorb some of the blow.

"Answers."

"I can't give you answers that I don't have," Michael argued.

"We shall see, Mr. Guerin. We shall see."

* * *

><p>They shoved his head underwater. It was cold, so cold that his mind screamed out in agony and he shut his eyes tight against the icy liquid. But the cold was soon unimportant compared to the burning in his lungs. He struggled, pushing against the arms that held him down, that trapped him in this watery hell.<p>

When he could bear it no longer, his body acted against his mind's command, his mouth opening of its own accord, his lungs desperately inhaling, searching for oxygen. What he got instead was more water, more liquid ice that choked him. He started thrashing wildly, his movements no longer contained to controlled efforts against his captors.

Now, all he had was simple, uncontrollable panic.

They pulled him from the water and he fell flat onto his back on the hard floor. The lights above burned his eyes and he struggled to lift one hand, to block his view and shade his eyes. But his arms would not obey his command, and instead lay limply on the ground. Water dripped from his hair into his eyes, and he could not see clearly.

The world was a blur.

Something was pressing on his chest, they were forcing water from his lungs, and then a voice whispered in his ear, "Do you think you can escape us so easily, Mr. Guerin? Even death will not take you from our clutches."

* * *

><p>He wasn't sure which was worse: the feel of the fire burning his skin or the smell of charred flesh that filled the air, suffocating him. The heat should have been a relief after the freezing cold water, but it had soon become too much. The smoke stung his eyes and clogged his throat and the pain in his skin left him breathless and aching.<p>

His pressed his hands flat against the white floor and tried to focus on a way to break free, to escape. He could not do it with his powers, and his own strength was fully sapped at this point. But there had to be something, some amount of wits and brains that could get him out of here.

But the fire…

It was everywhere.

Would they burn him alive?

The voice was no longer there to taunt him, to torment him. Instead, there was the crackle of flames and fire, the only noise to fill this empty space. And even that was muffled by the smoke and smog that absorbed all sound.

He was alone.

And in pain.

* * *

><p>His body arched, struggling to pull itself free of the restraints that tied it so tightly to the table. The chains bit into his skin, drawing blood in places, but that was nothing compared to the agony of the electricity that coursed through him, burning his insides and searing his skin.<p>

"Tell me," the voice said, coming from somewhere near his right ear and echoing in the white room, "about Max Evans."

"_I can't believe you're marrying her, Maxwell. I can't believe she said _yes_. How did you trick Parker into thinking you'd make a suitable husband?"_

"_An old trick I learned from Superman. Works every time."_

"_Every time? Do you propose to women a lot?"_

He remained stubbornly quiet, even as another burst of electricity made him want to scream. He would lose _that_ particular battle soon enough, no doubt, but he would deny them the satisfaction of hearing his cries for as long as he could.

Besides, what could he tell them? Max was dead. If these men had not retrieved his body from the sight of the battle, it was not Michael's fault. There had been no one to stop them in the end. Not even the media had caught up with them in time, so who could witness the scavengers coming back for bodies after the kill?

They were dead. All dead.

Except…

"Tell me about Liz Parker-Evans."

"_I'm holding into that dream, Michael. One day, Max and I will have a white picket fence and a dog. And you can mock me if you want, but I'm holding onto that dream."_

"_Whatever you say, Parker."_

"_Don't you and Maria have dreams?"_

"_Yes. We'd like to be alive at the end of this."_

She was always supposed to be the rational one, and Maria was supposed to be the quirky friend who held onto absurd dreams even in the middle of a war. But somewhere along the way their lives had changed, and Liz continued to cling to her dreams long after she should have given them up.

And Maria had been the one to lose her dreams, to let the reality of this world and their enemies drain away any hope they had for a normal life.

Sometimes, he wished she really had left. When she had the chance for a music career, when she had the opportunity to get out of Roswell… It would have been so much better for her, to have a different kind of life, a better life. And he wouldn't have had to worry about her constantly, to struggle to keep her safe, and in the end…

He wouldn't have had to see her die.

A jolt of electricity bursting through his skin pulled him from his gloomy thoughts, and unprepared for it, he just barely managed to clamp his mouth shut in time, biting off the scream that was so close to escaping.

"Tell me," the voice hissed, "about Isabel Evans-Ramirez."

"_I dreamt about Jesse last night. I keep thinking… hoping… that someday it will be safe again, and I can go back. I just… do you think he'll be waiting for me? He said he would, but its been years and…"_

"_He's in love with you, Izzy. He'll wait forever."_

But forever wouldn't be long enough. Not now, not this time, not after…

Another surge of electricity. His body twisted and turned, pulling against the chains, straining desperately as he instinctively tried to escape. But even if he could break free of these chains, what then? How could he get out of this room, out of this place?

"The four of you," the voice continued. "Mr. Evans and Ms. Parker-Evans, Ms. Evans-Ramirez, and yourself. An interesting group, wouldn't you say? And the others? Kyle Valenti and Maria DeLuca…"

"_Oh God… this cannot be happening."_

"_What's wrong, Valenti?"_

"_I just talked to my dad… He _married_ Amy DeLuca. Do you know what this means? Do you?"_

"_That your dad is incredibly lucky to have found someone as wonderful and talented as my mother?"_

"_Not as lucky as _your_ mother was to find _my_ dad."_

"_Does this mean the two of you are siblings?"_

"_Oh, God… don't say that, Space Boy. Don't ever say that…"_

Michael closed his eyes and tried desperately not to think about Maria. About how she had died.

More electricity.

And this time he screamed.

* * *

><p>It had been weeks since Liz had seen Michael, and all she knew was that he was alive. She did not know where, though, and thought she had little chance of finding him. Not with the Special Unit still on her trail. And not with the memories of Max's dead body forever etched into her mind. But her alien powers let her know that he was somewhere, and she had to keep looking for him, even if there was no hope.<p>

She sighed and rubbed her eyes.

The clock on the wall struck quarter past midnight, and she glanced at it quickly. She had spent all night staring at maps of the airing surrounding the attack sight and vainly hoping that she would have a premonition of Michael. But her powers of precognition gave her nothing.

And all she had were the memories of that day, of blood spreading out on the ground, of lifeless eyes staring up at her, of the smell of death lingering in the air.

Her cell phone chirped once, indicating a text message and pulling her from her thoughts. She slipped the phone open quickly, noting Jim Valenti's name on the caller I.D. He'd been considering possibilities, too, trying to help her find Michael. It had been desperation on her part, and a desire for revenge on his. They'd killed his only son, after all.

She swallowed uneasily and tried not to think about Kyle.

She opened the text message. There were only four words.

_Eagle Rock Military Base._

Where they had taken Max, where Pierce had tortured him, experimented on him. But that made no sense. The attack had happened in Minnesota, on snow-covered ground, far away from the heat of the New Mexico desert. And if their years on the run had taught Liz nothing else, it had taught her that the government had plenty of secret holding facilities all over the country, and there would be no reason to send Michael that far away.

Unless for some reason they wanted him in New Mexico. But why?

Jim would not have sent that to her without reason. He must have believed that Michael was there, or at least that the abandoned military base would offer some clue as to his whereabouts.


	3. Lose His Own Soul

Chapter Three: Lose His Own Soul

_For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?_ – Mark 8:36

The room was still dark. It smelled like sweat and something else he couldn't identify, but it was such a blessed change from the blistering white that nothing else seemed to matter.

He squinted through the gloom and could just make out the faint outline huddled against the far corner. She was not looking at him or, at least, he could not see the reflection of her blue eyes. He thought, briefly, that she might be asleep, but did not care to check. He wanted nothing to do with the traitor, and it was equally clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

The burns on his skin had not healed fully, and they throbbed painfully. But they _had_ faded somewhat, an indication that a significant amount of time had passed. Still… he had no idea how long it had been. Time meant nothing in the white room, and it meant nothing here.

He crawled to the wall opposite the huddled figure and watched her warily, waiting for some movement, some indication that she was aware of his presence. But there was nothing, and exhaustion was slowly seeping into his body, and he could not ignore it.

His eyes slowly fell shut.

But behind closed eyelids he saw only white, only the blankness of that room. He heard the voice whispering in his ear, saw the bright green eyes staring at him with cold amusement. With calculation. His throat was dry and nearly shredded from the screams that they had finally tore from him, and hot tears burned in his eyes, taunting him. A reminder of his weakness.

He could not do this. He could not survive this. How could anyone?

How could these people call themselves patriots? How could they pretend that they were protecting their country, protecting their family and friends? How could they not see that they were doing little more than torturing a man. And for what? For answers he didn't have?

He was not a threat. Not against this planet.

But the anger that had boiled in his veins, the stubborn determination not to break, the fierce refusal to let them destroy him, it was close to the surface now. Close enough to break free, to snap the chains that kept it firmly in place. Close enough to fly lose, to send him into a bloody rage.

He _could_ be a threat.

_They_ could make him one.

He was supposed to be a protector. A general, a soldier. All the emotion that he had felt within him growing up – the anger and hurt Hank's callousness caused, the longing brought on by Isabel and Max's perfect family, the loneliness that resulted from the knowledge that he did not belong here – had been channeled into a fierce need to keep himself and those he loved safe.

But that emotion had been strong enough to destroy, to kill. Pierce. For the right reasons, and because he had no other choice, but he had killed. And though it nearly destroyed him, he had always known that he could do it again if needed. That if he had to make a choice between Max, Isabel, and Maria or the rest of the world…

He would always choose his family.

And now his family was dead. Dead because of _them_. And all his emotion, all his pent-up rage and grief and fear, had nowhere to go. He had nothing left to protect, no one to keep safe, no one to guard. What would happen, then? Would this fury consume him?

Or would it consume his enemies?

And yet…

Liz was alive.

His mind had drifted back to that one thought during his time in the white room, and it brought him both hope and fear. Hope, because she was alive and maybe that meant he could be saved. Maybe it meant that there was a way out of this hell, a way to rescue himself. How could he live through more torture?

But fear, too. Because they had known that she was alive, and they had wanted her. Still wanted her. He wasn't the only one with secrets and he wasn't the only one with supernatural gifts. And the very idea of her captured by these… these inhuman creatures…

He heard movement, and his eyes snapped open, his body tense.

Tess was looking at him.

Her eyes met his for a moment and then looked away, seeming instead to roam the room. But he knew that she was merely avoiding his stare, because what reason could she have for investigating this place? There was nothing here but darkness and emptiness, and she had been here long enough to know that.

Far longer than he had.

She crawled to her hands and knees and moved across the floor. He watched her, his entire body coiled, ready to defend himself if need be. But she did not come any closer, merely moved to a new spot and stopped there.

He gazed at her, and she gazed steadily back, and they were both silent.

* * *

><p>They did not speak. Not when the men came back for Michael, dragging him from the room. He fought a futile battle, clawing at them with his hands and kicking with his feet, but the drugs they gave him kept his powers out of his reach and left him too groggy to coordinate his attack.<p>

They did not speak when he returned, bruised and broken. His skin was mottled purple and blue and the clothing he wore now – dark gray sweats and a white flannel shirt, dull and boring and unidentifiable – clung to his body, sticky with sweat.

They did not talk when he woke in terror, screaming his fears into the silence of the dark room, his lungs working desperately to find oxygen, the blood pounding in his ears. The smell of smoke lingered in the room, or perhaps it was his own imagination. It felt like death was everywhere.

And through it all, they did not speak.

Tess sat in the far corner of the room, watching him impassively. Sometimes she slept, sometimes she turned away from him and looked at the wall or the ceiling, sometimes she seemed lost in her own little world, unable to enter reality.

Michael did not mind. He had nothing to say to her.

But the silence stretched like a chasm between them, and sometimes, when she moved close enough that he could see the faint scars on her arms, or when he caught a glimpse of the haunted expression in her eyes before her face became a neutral mask, he felt the stirrings of something he couldn't explain.

Maybe it was pity.

And then they came for her.

She snarled, an animalistic sound ripping from between clenched teeth. Michael started, surprised, sure that he was the intended target. But the men came into the room and stepped past him, barely sparing him a glance. As though he wasn't there, as though he didn't matter.

Her snarl turned to a scream as they dragged her from the room, and Michael simply sat there, unable to think. The raw fear in her blue eyes reminded him that she had been here for far longer, and she knew, just as he did, what awaited them outside this room. It terrified her, and she fought back, nails scratching at skin, feet kicking out in a desperate attempt to flee.

It was also the first display of emotion that he had seen since she had thrown him into the electric door, and it unnerved him. It was inhuman. She was inhuman.

Did he look like that now, too?

With no way to tell time, he did not know how long she was gone. He slept twice, but dreams haunted him. Maria's accusing eyes filled his nightmares, her words yelling at him, berating him, demanding explanations.

_How could you let me die?_

He woke desperate to give her answers and had none to offer.

He had failed to save her.

He had failed to save them all.

But even awake, he had no respite from his dreams.

* * *

><p>It seemed like an eternity had passed in the emptiness of the room until they finally brought her back. He watched warily as she was dumped like a ragdoll onto the ground. She lay there, her breath uneven and shallow, her blonde hair drenched with sweat and plastered to her face and neck.<p>

He crept forward slowly, keeping his body tense. Ready to lash out if needed, ready to fight back. But she presented no threat to him. She was far to exhausted to fight, and when he leaned over her, peering into her face, her blue eyes seemed not even to recognize him.

He could feel the heat radiating from her skin. She was running a fever.

She looked so weak and helpless, and he had to bite back the urge to fuss over her. He wanted – _needed_ – to feel as though he could do something worthwhile. He was helpless here, helpless against these men who seemed to take callous pleasure in tormenting him. But if he could protect Tess, if he could keep her safe, then perhaps he wouldn't feel so helpless.

He savagely pushed the thought away. This was _Tess_, not Maria, not Isabel, not Liz. She was a murderer, a traitor. She deserved neither his pity nor his protection. And there was no reason to waste time and effort on her when she would so quickly turn on him if it suited her.

She moaned and rolled over onto her side. He pushed himself backwards, distancing himself from the blonde. But she barely looked at him. Instead, she struggled to her hands and knees and crawled through the darkness to the opposite wall where she collapsed in a heap.

The silence of the room was broken only by the sound of her rasping breathing.

He looked down, and saw that the floor was stained with something dark. He reached out, fingers just barely touching the substance.

Blood.

Tess' blood.

* * *

><p>His resolve was slowly crumbling.<p>

_They_ had not come back, which was probably a blessing, but Tess did not seem to be getting any better. She had not moved from her spot against the wall. Occasionally, her eyes would open and she would look at him, but he could not read what was in her eyes.

Still, the way she curled in on herself, the sharp intake of breath every time she moved… they were enough to tell him that she was hurt. Seriously hurt. And slowly, ever so slowly, he felt his own stubborn determination to ignore her fade until part of him wanted to reach out and offer some comfort.

"Tess?" he said finally, forcing the word from his dry throat. It hurt to speak.

She looked at him. Blue eyes widening at the sound of her name, then narrowing in distrust. He could see nothing more of her, just the blue of her eyes and the outline of her curls as she turned her face to him.

"Are you… do you want me to… to look at…" He stopped, gesturing helplessly to the blood on her clothing. But what did he really think he could do? He was no healer, not like Max. And even if he was, his powers were blocked by the chemical or serum they had given him. He couldn't help her, not really.

But he had to try.

"No," she said flatly, voice devoid of all emotion. Just a simple, blunt refusal.

Michael exhaled a breath furiously. "I just want…" He stopped. He didn't need to press the issue. He had offered to help, and she had refused. He had done his part, and it wasn't his fault if she didn't trust him. After all, she was the betrayer, she was the one who couldn't be trusted. Not him.

"What you want," she said softly, her eyes moving away from him and focusing instead on the door, "doesn't matter here."

Something clenched painfully in his stomach. Something hot, something angry. And something scared. The deadness in her voice frightened him. Her flashes of emotion – so rare and so wild – were better than this resignation. The Tess he remembered was fiery and stubborn and lied and manipulated and didn't ever back down.

How had these people broken her?

How long until he broke, too?

"I have to get out of here," he muttered.

"The others will come for you," she said.

Michael flinched and said nothing. But she was wrong, and he was alone. There was no one left to help him but Liz, and what could Liz do? Had she even gotten away, had she survived? He thought so. He hoped so. But beyond that, he knew very little. Just that he was alone.

He moved closer to Tess. As he drew near, he could see the outline of stain of blood on her clothing and along he hands and arm. He could see the pain in her expression as she slowly shifted position, keeping her eyes on him the entire time. There was a wariness there, behind the unemotional façade.

What did she think would happen? That he would attack her?

He reached out towards her and she jerked backwards, then gasped and doubled over in pain at the sudden movement. He grabbed at her shoulders, trying to steady her, and she lifted her face to him, her eyes wide.

"What are you… let go of me!"

And she yanked away from him again.

"Why are you doing this?" Michael demanded furiously. "Can't you see I'm just trying to help?"

"Trying to help?" she repeated. "Trying to _help_?" She laughed, a crazy, inhuman sound. "Haven't you done enough?"

"What about you? What about what you've done?" Michael spat back.

She shook her head. "I made my choice. But so did you, Michael. And now we both have to live with it." Her lips twisted into a cruel smirk. "I hope you're happy with your new life."

Her words ignited a spark of anger in his chest and he snarled, "Happy? Do you have any idea what we've been through?"

"I think the more relevant question is do I _care_," she replied. "You deserved whatever you got."

He stared at her, and her faced wavered before his eyes. He knew his mind was playing tricks on him, he knew none of this was real, but for a moment he couldn't distinguish between the cold blue of her eyes and the vicious green eyes he had encountered in the white room.

Without thinking, he lunged forward, his fingers curling around her throat, digging into her pale skin. "They're dead! Max, Isabel, Maria, Kyle… they're _all_ dead."

She was gasping for breath, and he could see the surprise and panic in her eyes at his actions. He was close enough now that he could see her clearly, even if the dark of the room. Close enough that he could smell the metallic scent of her blood and feel her uneven breaths on his face.

She was terrified. Of him.

And for a moment, he felt vicious triumph. She had been so cold, so callous, so fiercely unrepentant, but now she was struggling to get away from him. Now she had finally seemed to realize that he was stronger than her, that she couldn't hurt him anymore. He was the one in control.

He shoved her against the wall and let go.

She scrambled away from him, one hand pressed against the wall to keep her upright, the other one resting on her throat, gingerly touching the bruises he knew would form.

"See?" she whispered hoarsely. "They'll turn you into an animal, too."

"I'm _not_ an animal," he snapped. "And I am not a murderer."

"You just tried to strangle me," she countered. "And how many people have you killed to keep yourself safe?"

"You _deserved_ it," he answered, his anger making his vision turn red. Everything was shimmering with his own internal fury and fire. "I am _nothing_ like you."

"And why not? Because Alex was _different_?" she whispered.

"Yes! _Yes_, he was different!"

"But people have cared about the ones you killed, too. They had parents and friends. Maybe even wives and children. People loved them," she said quietly, callously. "Don't tell me you've never thought of _that_?"

"I don't kill if it isn't necessary," he answered.

"And was this _necessary_?" she demanded. "Look around. Look at what you've _done_." And she held her arms out wide. "You turned me in to be _tortured_ and experimented on like a lab rat. You've seen what they do here, you've felt what they've done to me for _years_. You could have killed me, but somehow you thought this was _better_."

"You _deserved_ it," he said again.

She laughed spitefully. "Why? Because I killed? Then so do you."

He snatched her arm, dragging her towards him, and she reached out and clawed at his face with her free hand. He knocked her hand away and grabbed her by both her shoulders. "Don't fight me," he spat, throwing her to the ground. "You can't win."

He looked down at her, and then at his own hands. They were covered in her blood.

She looked up at him, chin lifted defiantly. "Don't you see?" she answered. "I already have won. I've made you like _me_."

* * *

><p>There was light everywhere. Not the bright white of the white room, but something equally brilliant and painful. The darkness was shattered, and the light was followed by sound. A cacophony of screeches and crashes, metal twisting and tearing, doors ripped free, glass crushed.<p>

He sat upright as light streamed into their prison through the open hole in the wall above them, through the broken door that rested awkwardly on loose hinges.

She reacted faster, jumping to her feet and rushing towards the door. Her movements were awkward and painful, testimony to her injuries, but the determination in her eyes was enough to tell him that she was intent on doing whatever she could to take advantage of the chaos.

He didn't understand what it meant or how it could be happening.

"Tess… wait…"

He didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to deal with her, but this was a chance, an opportunity to escape, and he knew that if he was going to get out, they had to work together.

She paused at the door, looked back.

"Rot in hell," she spat.

He stumbled after her into the hallway. There was smoke in the air and the sound of sirens and the sight of flashing lights and he could barely think straight. His mind was a mess of jumbled, bewildered thoughts, but instinct was taking over, and he was following her, rushing through the hallways.

Every part of him hurt. His legs throbbed and his head ached and his lungs were struggling for oxygen, but he kept his eyes on her blonde curls and rushed after her. He wasn't going to be left behind.

The building was on fire. Smoke filled the hallway, and then there was the sound of gunshots ringing through the air, ricocheting off the walls and scatter metal and plaster and brick everywhere. He reached out and grabbed Tess, yanking her to the floor as the bullets passed overhead.

She looked up at him with wide eyes.

But he was looking past her. There was a hole in the wall, blown free by whatever explosion had occurred. It was surrounded by rubble and broken glass, but through it, he could see sunlight.

Daylight.

Freedom.

He dragged Tess to her feet and started running towards it. The pain was blissfully gone, and he knew it was the adrenaline pumping through his body that caused this. He was still injured, there was still blood on his clothing and bruises on his skin, but it didn't matter. The pain didn't matter.

Nothing mattered except getting out of here.

The sirens continued and the red warning lights flashed overhead and Tess was stumbling behind him, loosing ground as he raced forward. But he didn't stop, didn't look back. He had saved her life once, but now he had to save his. And she had to continue on her own.

"Michael!"

He heard Tess call out his name, a sudden scream. Panicked. A warning.

He spun around in time to see the gun pointing at him and threw himself forward towards his attacker. They fell, both of them, crashing into fragments of brick and metal. His hands reached for the gun, nails digging into skin, biting at his attacker. He had no powers to use at the moment, nothing at his disposal but a an animalistic rage and a determination to survive.

A pair of eyes looked up at him.

Green.

His rage exploded and he knocked the gun free, sending skidding it across the floor. He struggled with the other man, the two of them rolling back and forth across the floor, neither seeming to get the upper hand. Michael should have been afraid, should have been worried about losing. But all he could think of was the cool voice taunting him in the white room, and the blood pounded in his ears, blocking out any other sound.

His hands wrapped around the other man's throat, his own brown eyes meeting the green ones.

When it was all over, he rose to his feet and found Tess staring at him, holding the man's gun in her hands. But she had not fired a single shot, had not needed to.

Michael had done everything all on his own.

And suddenly Tess' previous words echoed in his head.

_I've made you like me._

"Come on," Tess said. "We need to go."

And she took his arm and pulled him towards the sunlight.

Everything was in disarray. The yard was filled with people running and cries of warning and the sound of explosions and more things caught fire. The smoke was heavy and the air was hot, but Michael didn't slow down, didn't stop. Tess was pulling him forward and they fought their way forward, towards the fence that surrounded the compound.

Towards freedom.

And then she appeared from the chaos and the smoke.

At first, Michael thought it was a hallucination. His exhausted mind was playing tricks on him, conjuring people he thought he would never see again. Brown hair and brown eyes and tan skin… how was any of this possible? How could she be here, how could she have found him?

"Michael?" Liz whispered. And then her disbelieving gaze slid to the blonde, "Tess?"

There were shouts from behind. People screaming, trying to stop them. Sirens and gunshots. The crackle of fire.

Tess dropped Michael's arm and turned, looked behind her, towards the people rushing at them, towards the men who had held them prisoner for so long and did not want to let them go.

"Run," she hissed.

And Michael did not need to be told twice.

He and Liz dashed for the fence in front of him. The barbed wire tore at his clothing and scraped his skin, but he didn't stop, didn't slow down. He could feel pain again, and horror at what had just happened, at _everything_ that had happened from the very beginning of all of this, but he couldn't stop and he couldn't hesitate.

There were people running at them suddenly and Liz was lifting her hand, fending them off with burst of green energy. Her brown hair whipped around in the wind and her face was set in hard lines of determination.

Something hit Michael in the shoulder. Something small and sharp and hard. A bullet.

Pain exploded and he nearly fell to his knees but Liz reached back and steadied him, never taking her eyes off the fight before them, never slowing down. She was resolute and unwavering and she pulled him forward even when he thought he would fall to his knees in fatigue.

He could barely breathe.

They made it through the fence and to the other side. To the road, to the trees that had grown up in odd clusters, to the smell of dust and dirt and the sight of blue skies that Michael wasn't sure he would ever see again.

He caught a glimpse of blonde curls out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Tess darting away from them, escaping their grasp. He took a step towards her, ready to follow, but Liz pulled him back.

"Let her go," she said. "We can't… we don't have time. Michael, come on, we need to go."

And Michael nodded and followed her towards freedom.


	4. A Heaven of Hell

AN: So sorry for the delay. The next updates should be a bit quicker.

* * *

><p>Chapter Four: A Heaven of Hell<p>

_"The mind is its own place and in itself,  
>Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."<em>

– _John Milton_

_Today is April 15__th__, I'm Liz Parker-Evans, and the only thing I know for certain is that nothing will ever be the same._

_After Alex died, I thought I could not go on. I believed that my life was ending right then and there. Without Alex, what was I? Without my best friend to keep me sane, how could I get through the craziness of my life?_

_He was dead, Tess was pregnant and a traitor, and an army of skins wanted to kill us._

_Life was odd._

_But years have passed, and I know now that no matter how hard it was then, it is so much harder this time._

_Now, it is far more than Alex that I have lost._

There would be no graves for the four of them, the FBI had made sure of that. They had not even left Liz the bodies, and maybe if she had had a chance to think about it at the time, it would have made her furious. It would have made her hate them even more than she already did. But she had run from that massacre, from the blood on the ground and the sight of Michael being dragged away, and the bodies had been left behind.

And then the FBI had taken them, no doubt to dissect the corpses and learn what they could from what remained. And Liz had been too wrapped up in finding Michael, in freeing him, to think about the fact that her husband and her sister-in-law and her two best friends would never get the proper burial they deserved. It hadn't been important at the time. The dead were dead, and she couldn't help them, much as she wanted to. But Michael was still alive, and she could help him, and that was what mattered.

But now that she had Michael back, now that he was safe – _they_ were safe – at least for now…

The three of them – herself, Michael, and Jim Valenti – stood on the bluffs in the desert outside of Roswell, near the remains of the pod chamber. Liz knew they couldn't linger for much longer. It was too dangerous to stay here, too obvious a place for them to hide. But it seemed the most appropriate place to conduct whatever sort of memorial ceremony they could have.

Michael reached out his hand, extending it towards the cliff opposite them, and concentrated. She saw the lines appear along his forehead, saw the tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. His lips pressed into a thin line and his palm began to glow with the energy that he was conjuring.

She opened his mouth to ask him what he was doing, and then snapped it shut. He was grieving in his own way, and she would not interrupt that.

Slowly, the rocky face of the cliff began to shift and reshape itself under the force of Michael's power. Words appeared, etched in stone.

_Max Evans. Isabel Evans. Maria DeLuca. Kyle Valenti. Beloved Family. They fought for freedom, and for the chance to be normal._

And below that, the sign of the Four Square, with a set of initials in each of the four ovals. _ME_. _IE_. _MD_. _KV_.

Liz felt her eyes burn with tears and she looked away briefly. Jim came to her side and rested his hand on her shoulder, his grip strong and comforting. Her stomach clenched painfully, but she forced a smile for his sake. His own expression was demoralized and stricken and so incredibly weary.

She wanted to tell him that she was sorry they ever dragged him into this mess. What had it ever given him but a ruined reputation, a lost job, and now a dead son?

But the words got caught in her throat, and she said nothing.

Tears fell form her eyes and slid down her cheeks, leaving stained tracks on her skin.

"We should… say something…" Jim murmured. "A poem or…" He trailed off and dropped his hand from Liz's shoulder.

What could they say? What could possibly encompass the pain they felt at the loss they had suffered? What could do justice to the sacrifices the others had made? What could truly put words to the blood-stained ground and the unadulterated grief and the burning hatred that was left behind?

"There's nothing to say," Liz whispered.

Michael didn't respond to her, or to Jim. He stared straight ahead, his eyes never leaving the names. She could see the vivid bruises and the outlines of scars on his skin and wondered just how much the FBI had taken from him. Not just Maria, not just Max and Isabel, not just Kyle… No, they had taken more than that. Was he even Michael anymore?

Liz closed her eyes. Max used to wake her up in the mornings and drag her outside to watch the sun rise. They would laugh and whisper and do their best not to wake the others. It was a ritual, a way to start each day.

They would never do that again.

She didn't feel like it had even sunk in yet. She was numb. In denial. Unable to comprehend.

How could everything have ended so quickly?

Michael walked forward and placed his hand on the stone. He slowly traced his fingers over each name. Then he turned and looked at Liz and said flatly, "Let's go."

And they left.

* * *

><p><em>Today is April 29<em>_th__, I'm Liz Parker-Evans, and I have no idea what to do. When I look at Michael, it seems as though he isn't there. He stares at me, through me, and I can't help but wonder what they did to him. How did the FBI take away his emotions and his temper?_

_How did they break him?_

_Or was it just them? Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'll hear him toss and turn in his bed, and when I slip into his room to wake him from the nightmares, he'll call out Tess' name._

_What did she do to him?_

He was screaming.

Liz was out of her bed in a heartbeat, and she found herself racing through the apartment as soon as her feet touched the cool ground. She pushed open the door to his bedroom and saw him, tangled in the sheets and blankets, tossing and turning and clawing wildly at phantoms from his dreams.

"Michael!" She hurried to his side and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him roughly. "Michael, wake up. Wake up!"

He groaned suddenly and stopped shaking. His eyelids blinked a few times, then he rolled over onto his side and looked up at her. "Parker?" he asked, his voice scratchy. And she could see the disappointment in his expression and knew that, in that brief moment between waking from his nightmares and facing the reality of his world, he had hoped that she was Maria.

"Sorry to disappoint," she murmured softly, perching on the edge of the bed. She wasn't who he wanted to see, and he wasn't who she wanted to see, but Maria and Max were dead, and all they had was each other.

She reached over and flicked on the lamp sitting on the bedside table. A warm yellow light flooded the small room, and Michael sat up fully, blinking to adjust his eyes to the light.

"You were having another nightmare," Liz explained.

Michael's expression hardened and he nodded. She hesitated, waiting for him to explain, to tell her what he saw. But he remained silent, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the wall opposite them.

"You were in the white room for nearly six weeks, Michael," she said finally. "And you've been out for less than a month. Having nightmares isn't unexpected, but maybe… maybe it would help if you talked about them."

"I don't need you to psychoanalyze me," Michael snapped harshly.

Liz wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to be hurt by his dismissal. She couldn't stop the little voice in the back of her mind that reminded her of all she had done for him – figuring out where he was, plotting and executing a rescue attempt, helping to patch up his wounds, finding an apartment in a little town in the middle-of-nowhere Montana where they would be safe for a while – just as she couldn't stop the annoyance she felt at the way he moved away from her and refused to meet her gaze.

But he had been tortured for three weeks. He was hurting, and she could understand that.

She just wanted to help.

"There's been no sign of Tess," she said finally. She was constantly on the lookout for the blonde hybrid, determined that the next time they crossed paths, Tess wouldn't get away. But in the month since they had left New Mexico, Tess had not been seen or heard of anywhere.

Michael nodded. "Good," he whispered, but his eyes were dark and haunted and she knew there was more he wanted to say.

He wouldn't say it, though. He never talked about Tess.

"I forgot to tell you," Liz continued, feeling the need to fill the emptiness with words. "I spoke to Jim yesterday. He's doing alright. He… uh…he says hello."

Michael glanced at her. "Okay," he said unemotionally.

It hadn't felt right to leave Jim behind, but he had insisted on staying. Roswell was his home, after all, and he was safe there. Safer than they were, at any rate. There was nothing Liz could say to change his mind, and Michael hadn't even bothered trying. There was no point and, as the monosyllabic hybrid had explained to Liz, no reason. If Jim was happy there, then what else could they ask for?

But it still felt wrong. They had lost so much, given up so much, and he had risked everything for them, multiple times.

"Okay, well…" Liz ran a hand through her hair. "It's still the middle of the night. You should try to get more sleep."

"There's no point," Michael answered quietly, his voice filled with raw pain. "All I do is dream."

Liz felt herself wishing violent, painful deaths on everyone in the Special Unit. How could they do this? Didn't they see that _they_ were the monsters, and not her and Michael?

"Do you want to watch a movie?" she asked finally. "I got a couple from the video store yesterday."

"You're spending our hard-earned money on videos?" Michael demanded with a bit of incredulity in his voice.

And Liz was so happy to hear an emotion – any emotion other than pain or that deadened tone – in his voice that she couldn't help but grin. Then she rolled her eyes and said, "And by hard-earned money, I assume you are referring to your trick of turning ones into twenties?"

He huffed, and said, "It took me a long time to perfect that. I destroyed several of Isabel's dollars before…" And then he stopped and looked away, the mention of Isabel clearly causing anguish.

Liz felt her own eyes burn with unshed tears as she remembered the hybrid Princess' expression of complete and utter irritation when she discovered that Michael had accidentally blown up most of her money. She'd turned his hair green and threatened to castrate him if he went anywhere near her wallet ever again.

But it wasn't time to dwell on those memories because, no matter how happy they were then, they only served to make things hurt more now.

"I have _Love, Actually_ and _Ever After_," Liz said. "Which ones sounds good?"

Michael wrinkled his nose. "They're both chick flicks," he grumbled.

"I'm a chick," Liz replied with a shrug. He glowered at her, and she said, "But I give you full permission to mock the characters, the actors, and the plot."

"And the people stupid enough to watch such sappy stories?" Michael asked.

She glared at him, but then nodded. "Fine," she sniffed. "If you want to mock me, go ahead. I'll just suffer in silence." Then she slid off the bed. "There's some microwavable popcorn in the pantry. Go make a package or two, and I'll get the movie started."

* * *

><p><em>Today is May 7<em>_th__, I'm Liz Parker-Evans, and every time I think things are slowly getting normal again, something happens to change it. We were finally getting back on our feet. Michael's nightmares have come less frequently this past week, and he got a job as a mechanic at a little auto shop along the highway. I'm back to being a waitress, and each morning waking up without Max hurts just a little bit less._

_But just when I think we're finally standing on solid ground, the rug gets pulled out from under our feet._

Michael came back to the apartment with a scowl on his face and engine grease on his hands and shirt. Liz glanced up at him, a smile of welcome on her lips. It died quickly, though, and was replaced by a frown.

"Are you alright?" she asked in concern.

"Fine," he said, biting off the word. His eyes were stormy and filled with anger, and he walked past her without so much as a glance in her direction. "I need a shower."

"Michael. Michael, wait," Liz protested, following him towards his bedroom. She hovered in the doorway as he grabbed a pair of clean jeans and a shirt. "Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong."

"What's wrong?" Michael mimicked, turning around to face her. And though she knew Michael would never hurt her, she still took an instinctive step back in apprehension. Michael didn't seem to notice, and continued, "Maria's dead. So are Max and Isabel. Even Kyle. Our entire family is dead and I was tortured by the FBI for _weeks_ and you want to know what is _wrong_?"

"I just meant…" Liz stopped, shook her head, unable to stop the hurt from appearing in her eyes. "I was just asking," she said softly. They were her family, too. He wasn't the only one who had lost people, and although she had no idea what it was like in the white room, she was still grieving. She was still in pain.

And he was pretty much all she had left.

For a brief moment, she saw guilt in his expression. Then his eyes hardened and he pushed past her and entered the bathroom. A moment later, she heard the shower running.

With a sigh, she walked back to the sofa in their small living room and sat down. It was a strange life they were leading, this half-existence. If anyone had told her years ago that she would spend her adult life on the run, occasionally using superhuman abilities to counterfeit money, she would have thought them insane.

Before the shooting at the Crashdown on that fateful day in September, everything had been so much more simple. There had been right and wrong, and she had never really questioned her morals. But her time with the hybrids had taught her that ethics were often relative, and there was so much more gray in this world than she had ever appreciated before.

And yet, there was still some black and white. And what the FBI had done to Michael was simply wrong.

She heard the shower end a few minutes later and tried to look preoccupied. She clearly didn't succeed, though, because when Michael emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping from the ends of his hair, he gave Liz a scrutinizing stare and said, "I wasn't going to drown, you know."

Liz flushed, but held his gaze without flinching. "Are you going to tell me what happened today?"

Michael's expression was sour, but to his credit, his voice was even and soft when he replied, "It's nothing. It's just been a long day, Liz."

She tensed. "Don't tell me that," she retorted angrily. "Don't push me away, Michael. We're in this together, remember. Your problems are my problems."

"What do you think you can do for me?" Michael demanded. "How do you think you can help? Can you erase those six weeks? Can undo what happened to me, what I did to others?"

Liz's eyes widened. "What you did to others?" she repeated curiously, rising to her feet and crossing to his side. He was so much taller than her, and she had to tilt her head back to look up at him, but being closer meant that he couldn't just turn and walk away from the conversation.

She was forcing him to deal with her.

Occasionally, he would allude to the white room. It didn't happen much, but sometimes he would make a reference to what happened to him there. It was usually at night, after the memories had haunted his dreams and his defenses were down. But whenever he spoke about it, it was always about the horrors that had happened to him.

This was the first time he'd ever mentioned anything he might have done to someone else.

Michael looked away. "It doesn't matter."

"It obviously matters to you," Liz countered, "and that makes it important to me, too. If you would just talk about it…"

"There's nothing to talk about," Michael interrupted stubbornly. "Nothing!"

"Stop doing this, stop shutting me out!" Liz insisted, her voice rising in pitch. She could hear her own desperation and fear, and it sounded so unlike it that it took her aback. It must have surprised Michael, too, because he gaped at her for a moment.

Then he shook his head.

"Michael, tell me!" Liz pleaded. "Tell me."

"What do you want me to say?" Michael hissed. "That I'm going crazy? That I'm seeing things? Will that help you, Parker? Will it make you feel better?"

Liz wasn't sure what to feel – worry at the venom in his voice or relief at the fact that he'd called her Parker. His use of her last name had been fairly constant over the years, especially after leaving Roswell, and he'd only reverted to calling her Liz when something was really wrong. It sounded odd, hearing him utter her first name now, and the repeated use of it had left her unnerved.

But the fact that he'd called her Parker didn't make it that much easier, because he was still refusing to answer her questioning look.

"What are you seeing?" she asked finally, forced to say the question aloud.

He was nearly shaking with rage. She reached out, placing her fingers lightly on his arm, and her jerked at the contact as though she had somehow burned him. She wasn't used to seeing this kind of anger in him, wasn't used to the way his expression darkened into something unrecogonizable.

Something that actually scared her.

"Tess. Everywhere," Michael growled. His expression hardened, and he looked past Liz, clearly not seeing anything but his own troubled thoughts. "It's always out of the corner of my eye. I'll get a glimpse of blonde curls and I turn and there is nothing there."

"She's been on your mind since the white room," Liz said reassuringly. "It's just your mind playing tricks on you because you're worried."

Michael gazed at her. "It's more than that," he said. "She's everywhere. I can _feel_ her. Either I'm completely crazy or…"

But then he lapsed into silence, and nothing Liz could do would get him to continue the conversation.

* * *

><p><em>Today is May 13<em>_th__, I'm Liz Parker-Evans, and I can't help but wonder if I've gone crazy. Michael still thinks he is the one who has lost his mind, because he's seeing hallucinations of Tess. But I can't help but think that he isn't crazy, that Tess is really out there somewhere, watching us. And I know it is paranoid and I know I have no reason to think that, but I can't shake the feeling that she's still somehow intruding on our lives._

The grief came without warning. Standing in the bread aisle of the grocery store, debating the different options – white or wheat or rye? – Liz felt a sudden overwhelming sadness. It was such a simple, mundane activity, something she had done all the time without thought for years.

But there had never been a reason to think. She knew what kind of bread Max liked, and she'd get it automatically, without even pausing to contemplate the other options.

But Max wasn't here anymore.

She reached out and curled her fingers around the plastic of the whole wheat bread, and felt the burning sensation in her eyes, the telltale prick of tears she wouldn't let fall. She didn't want to cry in public, didn't want everyone at the store to stare at her, wondering why she was sobbing in front of the bread.

She blinked rapidly and forced back the tears. Taking a shaky breath, she dropped the bread into her grocery basket and turned around.

And out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a few blonde curls disappearing around the end of the aisle.

Without thinking, she took off at a run, dropping her basket and leaving the spilled groceries behind. When she reached the end of the aisle, she saw the figure heading towards the exit.

Blonde hair, petite frame…

Liz ran, pushing past the other patrons of the grocery store, ignoring the protests and shouts, forcing her way to the exit. The figure turned slightly, revealing blue eyes, and Liz felt her own anger bubbling just below the surface. If she wasn't careful, her powers would erupt out of control and they'd be exposed.

But that didn't matter to her at the moment. Nothing mattered but catching up with the girl walking away from her.

Outside the grocery store, however, she found herself standing in an almost empty parking lot. The warm sun illuminated the expanse of cement, light reflecting off the few cars parked randomly around. But Tess was nowhere to be seen. There was no indication that she had even ever been there, no car pulling out of the lot, no echo of distant footsteps running away. Just emptiness and stillness.

Liz sagged against the wall of the building, out of breath and bewildered. She had been certain that had seen Tess, that it was the forth hybrid she had been chasing. She certainly had been chasing someone, after all, and yet now she was standing here completely alone.

How was that possible? Had she been seeing things? Was she going crazy?

"Oh, God," she said, choking on a high-pitched laugh.

"Parker?"

She turned as Michael came out of the grocery store, looking worried. His expression changed from concern to fear as he saw the crazed look in her eyes, and he came to her side quickly.

"What happened? I went to find you and I saw our basket on the floor and I thought you'd gotten attacked or something…" he said, his eyes searching her for signs of injuries.

"I'm going insane," Liz whispered, sinking to the ground. She pulled her knees into her chest and sat there, at the edge of the parking lot, with Michael towering above her, waiting for more of an explanation. "You should lock me away in a mental hospital, Michael. I've lost my mind."

"What happened?" Michael repeated, more urgency in his tone.

"I saw Tess," Liz answered. "She was there. Just… right there. I chased her out to the parking lot, and then when I got out here," she spread her arms wide, "there's nothing. I've been seeing things, Michael. But I was _so_ sure she was there."

"Maybe whatever I have is contagious," Michael suggested wryly.

Liz shook her head, unable to find any humor in the situation. When Michael had told her last week that he had been seeing Tess everywhere, she had told him it was all in his mind. She wasn't sure she had believed that, but it had been the right thing to say, the only way to assure him that a traitorous murdering alien was not spying on them. He had been so angry, so on edge, so fearful, and she needed to do whatever she could to comfort him.

But it hadn't stopped her from wondering…

She hadn't really been sure what scared her more. The possibility that Tess was watching them, or the possibility that she wasn't, and Michael was really losing his mind.

But now she was seeing Tess. Now she was the one losing her mind.

Or being stalked by a killer alien.

"I'm seeing things, Michael," she murmured. "I'm really hallucinating."

Michael crouched down at her side and caught her by the arms. "You've been thinking about Tess as much as I have. So now your mind is playing tricks on you, too. It's not a big deal."

"Right," she drawled. "No big deal. I'm just losing my mind."

Michael pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her in a protective hug. "Don't worry, Parker," he said. "You aren't alone in this, you know. We can go crazy together."


	5. Shall We Not Revenge

A/N: This chapter takes us back in time to when Tess split ways with Liz and Michael and gives an insight into what she's been doing and what she's been feeling and just how fragile her state of mind is at the moment.

* * *

><p>Chapter Five: Shall We Not Revenge?<p>

_If you prick us do we not bleed?  
>If you tickle us do we not laugh?<br>If you poison us do we not die?  
>And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?<em>

_-Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice_

_It's my turn to vote._

The world smelled different from the way she remembered. Newer and filled with more vibrant scents. Everything was sharper; the cut grass, the fresh rainfall, the apples and cherries on the trees. And the car exhaust, the overflowing trash cans that hadn't been emptied yet, and all the other smells that were less than pleasant.

But oddly, colors were muted. She had grown so used to white – constant, scorching, unbearable white – that everything else was softer. Pale, muted hues. Faint shades that didn't do justice to the brightness that was probably there, if only she could see it.

Emotions took her by surprise. A little boy smiled at her as she walked past him; it caught her unawares, and she had no idea what to do.

Why was he smiling at her? Didn't he know what she was?

_They'll turn you into an animal, too._

She didn't understand how to live in this new world. She wasn't sure she ever knew, but she certainly knew less now. The world had kept turning even after her own life had stopped, and she had been left behind. Left behind with pain and torment and white.

Always white.

The world smelled like cigarette smoke and peppermint and laundry detergent.

_Rot in hell._

And she had no idea what she was supposed to do now.

* * *

><p>She found their memorial, or, at least, what Michael had left behind as tribute. There were no graves – no bodies, but there were never bodies, not when the FBI was involved – just words etched into stone. Names.<p>

Beloved family.

She reached out and traced a finger around the letters in Kyle's name. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

The others meant less to her, though perhaps they should have meant more. Max. Isabel. Her family. But they weren't family anymore, they hadn't been family for a very long time.

Max voted no.

Max voted no and then stood there and did nothing as the others advanced towards her and she…

What good was it to her if he voted no when he did nothing to stop the ones who voted yes? Didn't they know what they had done? She had lived through whiteness for years – _years_ – and when she closed her eyes she could still see their faces – triumphant, happy, as though they didn't even realize what they were doing – and it made her sick.

It made her angry.

They were killers, too.

She had never wanted to hurt Kyle. But now he was dead and she was alive and wasn't that just ironic?

Kyle had voted no, too.

She closed her eyes and tried to force away the burn of tears and the smell of saltwater on her cheeks.

_White. White hell. _

What happened now?

* * *

><p>She wondered if they could feel her.<p>

She felt them. She felt them all the time, even in her sleep. Michael's fear and Liz's grief. They were connected to her in ways she didn't want to remember, connected by threads she desperately wanted to break. But the ties that bound them would bend and stretch and twist, but never snap.

_It means that they're coming for you._

She tried running.

California smelled like plastic.

Two days in Los Angeles, and she wanted desperately to leave. She would lie awake in bed and listen to the traffic outside the window of her tiny apartment and some part of her wished so badly that the sound would drown out her own fears.

_What you want doesn't matter here._

Sleep was hard to come by, and peaceful sleep was impossible. Her nights were filled with terror, with bright eyes and white walls and the feel of electricity on her skin.

Two nights in Los Angeles and she thought perhaps she'd already gone crazy.

She couldn't get far enough away from Michael and Liz. They were gone, long gone, perhaps on the other side of the world by now, but she heard their words in her head. Faint echoes, soft whispers, quiet murmurs. Sounds that drove her insane, made her want to scratch at her ears just to get it to stop.

Everything was white, and she was afraid, and California smelled like plastic.

* * *

><p>She started talking to herself.<p>

She left California and the smell of plastic, traded it in for the rain and mud of Seattle's spring, and the smell of air after the water had washed away the dust and pollen. And Seattle was fresh and new and a chance to start over, but five days there and she was talking to herself.

The words came out in small bursts at first, and she assumed it was because she had no one else to speak to. She was alone – alone, all alone, far more alone than she had ever felt before, and wasn't that just absurd given everything? – and the thoughts that echoed in her head made her cry out in anguish. She was alone and her emotions were threatening to explode, and there was no one to hear her scream.

_I made my choice._

She'd whisper names at night – Kyle and Jim, mostly, and sometimes Max, but never the others, never the ones who had voted _yes_ – and sometimes, during the day, when the sun was just able to break through the perpetual gray clouds and she felt heat on her face, she'd whisper _that_ name.

Alex.

There was never an answer.

But she could still feel Michael and Liz, feel the connections that had been pulled apart at the seams, ripped to shreds, and yet somehow still existed.

_I hope you're happy with your new life._

When the words turned into sentences and she was having full conversations with herself, she started to worry. She was finally free of the white room, of the torment, of the pain and agony and the knowledge that this would never end…

She had not gone crazy, then. In that room, through those years, she had clung to her own sanity even as they tried to tear it from her, just like they tried to take everything else. Sometimes it would slip, sometimes she would lose herself in the white and the emptiness, sometimes she would forget, but she would always fight to get it back.

Fight tooth and nail to remember who she was.

If she had managed to stay sane then, why was she losing her mind now?

* * *

><p>Idaho was filled with potatoes and smelled like dirt.<p>

"I was raised by a killer," she said into the silence of her apartment, but no one answered.

She wasn't really sure who she was talking to, anyway.

The ones who needed to understand were gone, dead. She wanted to apologize to Alex – the only one she wanted to apologize to anymore, because didn't the others deserve their death after what they had done to her? – and sometimes she thought perhaps she was speaking to him.

Sometimes she thought maybe he could hear her.

_Haven't you done enough?_

She closed her eyes at night and thought of Nasedo and Khivar and her son.

She had so determinedly avoided thinking about Zan during her stay in the white room. Some part of her suspected that if she thought of him at all, the FBI would know and would track him down. She would give her life to keep him safe, and if that meant forgetting him…

As she tried to cling to her memories of her own identity, she had fought just as hard to let go of her memories of him.

But now the white was gone and the world was filled with different pastels and she thought of Zan and wondered.

She was sane enough to know she couldn't go after him, sane enough to know she was far too crazy to take care of a child. But he was out there, somewhere; and in Idaho, she thought of him and wondered.

"I was raised by a killer," she said into the silence of her apartment, "and look how it turned out."

Maybe this was for the best; Zan wouldn't have to be raised by a killer, too.

* * *

><p>She stayed in Idaho for two weeks.<p>

Michael woke screaming, his world torn apart by a nightmare, and she felt it. Liz tried to comfort him, tried to offer him some sort of respite from his dreams, and she felt it.

"But you're a killer, too," she said aloud, knowing they couldn't hear her. And that even if they could hear her, they would never listen.

Alex was different.

So was she. So were they. Everything was different now. Their justice had been revenge, nothing less and nothing more. Fundamentally dark.

Schadenfreude. Pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

_You deserved whatever you got._

Where was the justice in any of it?

After too many nightmares, the world smelled like blood.

She dreamt of Michael and Liz and open land and a twisting highway and the next day she left for Montana.

* * *

><p>She saw Michael.<p>

He saw her, too, but he was never fast enough. She was always moving out his line of vision, always disappearing into thin air every time he turned around. She saw his panic and his fear and felt his anger and his hatred.

The white room had torn him apart and left nothing behind. No matter how many times Liz tried to assemble the pieces, she would never be able to make him whole.

_You should have killed me._

She watched Michael, and waited for him to see her, but he never did. Not enough to know she was there. Just glimpses. Just enough to make him think he was going crazy.

She heard his whispered conversations with Liz and wasn't sure if they were real or just happening inside her own head. It didn't matter, though, because nothing he said could possibly change anything. She had hated him – hated them both – for far too long.

Look what they had done to her. They called it justice and pretended it was what she deserved but it was torture and pain and endless agony and did anyone really deserve that?

When she hated them, she was lucid. The hate cleared her mind and made her remember.

They had made their choices, and she had made hers.

_And now we both have to live with it._

She watched them, and she saw Michael, and she saw Liz. And Liz almost saw her, but not enough. Never enough.

Just an empty parking lot and no one there. Liz thought she was losing her mind.

Mind-warp was a valuable skill.

She had never believed in hell before.

She watched Michael and Liz and saw them go slowly insane, so sure of her presence and yet unable to find her, haunted by memories of all they had lost and grief that never ended.

She believed in hell now.

Hell was white.

She watched Liz from the other side of the parking lot, watched as Michael comforted her, wrapped his arms around her and told her everything would be okay.

It wouldn't be okay. It would never be okay.

They weren't the only ones who were hurting, and she wasn't the only one who had hurt others.

_But people have cared about the ones you killed, too._

* * *

><p>She saw Michael.<p>

He was working as a mechanic, fixing cars, smiling through the darkness that lingered in his eyes and pretending that the world wasn't falling apart all around him.

She saw Michael, and she waited.

He looked up from the engine of the car, tools in hand, grease smeared on his arms and part of his shirt, and she caught his gaze.

And this time, she didn't disappear.

They stared at each from across the distance, and his eyes went wide, and she saw the fear and the rage that simmered just below the surface and the undeniable thirst for revenge. All emotions she had felt, all emotions she still felt, even now. The white room had done this to her, and it had done it to him. But so had war and loss and grief, and the Michael that she saw then was broken in so many ways.

_I already have won. I've made you like me._

She saw Michael, and he saw her.

And the world smelled like grease and car oil and exhaust.


	6. Our Own Devil

Chapter Six: Our Own Devil

_We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. _

_- Oscar Wilde_

"I don't know what to say. Parker says… well, Parker says a lot of things, and I'm not sure if I believe any of them anymore. But, you know… sometimes I hear her talking. To Maxwell or… or to you. She says it makes her feel better, to think that you can hear her. Which is odd, because she's the scientist and she _knows_ that dead people are dead, but…"

Michael sighed and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. He didn't really want to talk about Liz. He didn't know _what_ he wanted to talk about, but he knew it wasn't the brunette. How could he tell his dead girlfriend about the other girl that was slowly taking her place?

Still, Maria deserved to know the truth, even if she was dead.

So did it make him a coward that he couldn't bring himself to say it?

"I miss you," he said. "And I think I'm going insane."

Then he splashed cold water on his hands, took one last long look in the mirror – dark circles under his eyes and a haunted look that still wasn't gone and why did he even bother to take in his appearance anymore? – and left the bathroom.

Liz was standing in the hallway, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. "You take forever, Michael," she said irritably. "Is there any hot water left at all?" Her gaze moved past him, to the bathroom, and she demanded, "When did you turn into such a girl?"

"When did you turn into such a prima donna?" Michael shot back with a wry smirk. He wasn't the only one with dark circles under his eyes, and as Liz struggled to keep the two of them afloat, she grew more irritable in the morning.

He liked it. He liked seeing that she wasn't always sunshine and roses, that she could be dark and sarcastic. It gave her more of an edge than she had ever had before, even during their senior year of high school when she had been arrested and Max was off on his own vigilante-type mission and everything was going up in flames. There was a definite hardness to her, one that was clearly a mask to hide the fear and anger and grief.

He liked knowing that he wasn't the only one drowning.

They were in this together.

But he still couldn't tell her that the reason it took so long for him to finish getting ready in the morning was because he spent most of the time talking to Maria.

"Bathroom is all yours," he said, slipping past her.

He heard her huff and knew she was rolling her eyes.

It would take her a while to get ready for the day, so Michael didn't bother waiting around to say goodbye. They never did exchange those sorts of pleasantries. More often than not, they could go entire evenings without speaking, not even bothering to acknowledge each other with more than a brief nod upon returning from work.

Maria had been a chatterbox. Silence had never lasted long, and Michael hadn't minded that. He didn't have a lot to say; or, at least, he didn't feel the need to talk unless he had something important that needed to be said. It worked well, then, to let Maria do all the talking.

Spending time with Liz was different.

Everything about Liz was different.

Everything about his life now was different.

Michael walked out of the apartment, closing the door sharply behind him. His eyes scanned the hallway as he moved automatically towards the stairs. Ever since Liz's near meltdown in the parking lot outside the grocery store he had been on edge. Liz had waived it off as an overactive imagination, but Michael knew better.

This was too much of a coincidence.

The nice thing about working as a mechanic, he reflected as he arrived at the garage several minutes later, was that it gave him plenty of time to think. He worked well and quickly, and his taciturn manner had sent clear signals to everyone else that he wanted to be left alone.

And for the most part, they did leave him alone. It was a small town, and they were nosy, just the way Roswell was. But they were nosy because they cared, and they never pried too far into his life. They only asked the occasional bland question – how was your weekend, how's it going, how is your girlfriend? – and he was able to brush them off with an equally bland answer.

He never bothered to tell them that Liz wasn't his girlfriend.

He worked hard and he did well, and that was enough for his boss, who happily hired him for as many or as a little shifts as he wanted.

In fact, everything in his life was going well. Or, at least, as well as could be expected given that his entire family had been murdered, he had been tortured and experimented on, and he was now hiding from the government and a potentially unhinged enemy alien.

Thoughts of Tess bothered him for reasons he could never really explain to Liz. He didn't want to explain them to her, didn't want to admit them to himself.

He worked silently and steadily and tried to ignore the hammering in his heart.

He missed Maria.

He missed Isabel, too, and Max. And even Kyle. All of them.

But mostly, he missed Maria.

He was halfway through assessing a blown out engine an a fancy car brought in by a primly dressed out-of-towner went he felt chills running up and down his spine. He tossed his rag down and looked up, his eyes scanning the area.

And he found himself staring at Tess.

She looked back at him. The bruises and cuts on her skin had healed, and her hair was shorter and more finely kept. Her powers had clearly come back now that the chemical compound was out of her system, and she had spent some time on her appearance. She looked exactly the way he remembered her from when she first came to Roswell – vibrant, ambitious, and so self-assured.

Except the eyes.

Her eyes were different. Haunted.

She turned and walked away, and he stood there, numb with disbelief, unable to think clearly enough to follow her.

* * *

><p>"You <em>saw<em> Tess? You're sure? It wasn't just… it wasn't your imagination?"

"No, Parker, it wasn't," Michael said, frowning at her. It was the fifth time Liz had asked that question, and her inability to grasp – or possibly believe – what he was saying was starting to grate on his nerves.

Honestly, did she really think he would show up in the middle of the day and drag her out of whatever she had been doing if he wasn't certain of what he had seen?

Still, he supposed he couldn't really blame her for her disbelief.

He scratched his eyebrow absently. "It was Tess. She was right there, and she didn't… she didn't leave when I looked at her. She was _there_."

It had been only a week since the incident at the grocery store, only a week since Liz had seen Tess, too, and somehow he hadn't expected this. Liz was convinced that they were delusional, or, rather, that was what she had been saying. As though she wanted to believe it, wanted both of them to believe it.

But they had known better, subconsciously, and this had proven just how right they were.

"Tess is here," Liz whispered. She sank onto the sofa and buried her head in her hands. "Tess is _here_. How? How did she find us? What does she want?"

Michael didn't answer. He had an idea – several of them, in fact – but he doubted Liz would want to hear his rather morbid thoughts. But the confirmation of Tess' presence did change things, and it made it so he could no longer ignore those thoughts that had been lingering in the back of his mind.

But he wouldn't inflict them on Liz. Not then, not while she was still struggling to accept the fact that they hadn't escaped the alien mess after all.

And wasn't that just ironic, because for the first time in a while, Michael had actually felt relaxed. And this middle-of-nowhere Montana town felt like home.

"Oh, God…" Liz trailed off and didn't finish the sentence and Michael didn't press her for her thoughts. Instead, he turned and walked into his bedroom, closing the door quickly behind him and sitting heavily on the edge of his bed. Sometimes fear brought the two of them together, sometimes it pushed them apart.

He wasn't sure which one this would be.

"What do I do, Maria?" he asked. "Max, Isabel… Hell, I'd even take advice from Valenti right now. What do I do?"

There was no answer.

He hadn't really expected there to be one.

But he could have used the comfort. He could have used the help. He could have used _anything_ right now, because he had seen the fear in Liz's eyes and knew that neither of them were up to dealing with the emotions that were about to come bursting through their carefully erected walls.

"I miss you," he said softly, letting out a slow breath. He was talking to Maria, and to all of them.

He missed them so much it physically hurt.

* * *

><p>The next day dawned, and Michael woke with determination. He was going to find Tess, and he was going to talk to her, and he was going to get her to leave. He was going to offer her the chance to get as far away from them as possible, to move to the other side of the world if she wanted.<p>

And if she refused… he didn't _want_ to fight her, but it didn't mean he _wouldn't_.

He knew Liz wasn't asleep. He didn't know how he knew it, and he didn't bother thinking about the fact that he could somehow sense when the brunette was sleeping peacefully and when she was tossing and turning, kept awake by her overactive brain.

He moved quietly through the apartment, not wanting to alert Liz to the fact that he was up. He didn't want her to come with him, didn't want her to know what he was planning on doing. He wanted to protect her from this, from all the truths that had burned into his brain during his time in the white room.

He wanted to keep her from suffering the way he had suffered.

In the bathroom, he splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up completely and then glanced briefly at his reflection. Something was clenched tightly, painfully, in his chest, and it hurt to breathe. Was it his own anxiety?

"I miss you," he murmured, the same refrain he used every time he spoke to Maria. It was true, it would always be true, but then why did that ache subside just a little every time Liz entered the room? Why did he look at the brunette and feel just a little bit of peace, a little bit of happiness?

And why couldn't he admit that aloud?

"We were so stupid," Michael said slowly, softly. "Remember all those fights? When you were mad because I didn't bring you flowers on a date and I was mad because you wanted to watch a chick flick and talk about feelings? It seemed like the end of the world, didn't it? It seemed like everything was so… so important. But they were just stupid, pointless, petty fights…" He shook his head. "What I wouldn't give to go back to that."

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, trying to remember the scent of Maria's vanilla-and-cinnamon shampoo. Even that was fading, leaving him no matter how much he tried to cling to it.

Life went on, even after other people died.

He opened his eyes and squared his shoulders. It was time to put aside his fears and his regrets and focus on what had to be done. Those voices in the back of his mind, the quiet whispers that kept telling him, over and over, that maybe Tess had a legitimate claim to vengeance…

He had to ignore them.

He had to protect his own. And that was Liz. She was all he had left, and nothing – not even Tess – was going to hurt her.

He moved quickly, silently, slipping out of the apartment without a sound. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to find Tess, but that didn't give him even the slightest bit of hesitation. He walked quickly, and with purpose, down the stairs and out into the cool Montana morning.

It was a small town. Someone would have noticed Tess' presence. He had no idea how long she had been here, no idea if she had tried to keep her presence hidden from everyone else as well, but she hadn't minded being seen yesterday. And Michael couldn't have been the only one who saw her.

It was a small town. A nosy town. Someone would have answers.

What he had not expected was to find Tess waiting for him.

She was sitting on the bench across the street a block away from his apartment building. She was staring at him, her eyes watching his every move with a wariness he couldn't quite understand. Was she as afraid of him as he was of her?

He walked towards her, pulling his strength and his energy together, feeling his powers humming just below the surface of his skin. He was tense, and he would be ready for anything. He didn't know what she was capable of now, but he knew what she was capable of _then_, and he wasn't going to be her second victim.

He stopped in front of her.

"What are you doing here, Tess?" he demanded. His hands were itching to attack, to fling themselves at her and let loose a burst of energy that would end this threat forever. His entire body wanted nothing more than to launch itself at the girl who had caused so many problems in their lives…

But he couldn't.

Those eyes. Those exhausted, wary, _haunted_ eyes. They burned into him, accusations lingering just below the surface.

"You're everywhere," she whispered. "I can _feel_ you. You and Liz. You haunt my dreams, you won't leave me alone. Haven't you taken enough?" She rose to her feet, and he was still so much taller than her but somehow that height difference didn't matter.

Michael's throat constricted. "You _killed_ Alex," he spat. "Are you here to kill us, too?"

"I see white," Tess said. "Everywhere. I see white over and over and I…" She looked away briefly, and he glanced down at her hands, noticed that they were slowly clenching and unclenching. She, too, was prepared for a fight.

But they were standing out in the open, and even if it was early morning, there could still be a few people awake and about. Surely she wouldn't be stupid enough to start something here?

"It hurts. Did you know that? Did you know how much it would _still_ hurt, even now that we're out of there?" Tess hissed through clenched teeth, eyes snapping back to his face. "It eats away at you. Nightmares and agony. You did this to me."

"You deserved…" Michael started, but she interrupted him.

"Did I? _Really_? We're all killers, Michael. It's a war."

"You're a traitor," Michael replied viciously.

She blinked, tears forming in her eyes. "Smells are so much sharper than I remember. There were no smells in the whiteness. Or maybe there were, and I just forgot…" She trailed off. "Torture's wrong, Michael. You should know that."

"What are you doing here?" Michael repeated.

"I _told_ you," Tess snarled. "You won't leave me alone. You're everywhere I go."

"It's your own conscience that is doing this to you," Michael said grimly. "Not me, and certainly not Liz."

"You took my sanity," Tess said, her voice suddenly cold, so cold, and malicious. "So now I'll take yours."

And without warning, she hit him in the chest with both her hands. He felt rather than saw the sparks of electricity leave her palms and slam into him. It took his breath away, and he fell to his knees, gasping. Tears pricked at his eyes, and all his thoughts of fighting her, of being prepared for her attack, of not allowing her to take advantage of him, vanished from his mind.

When he looked up, she was gone.

* * *

><p>Liz knew. He didn't know how Liz knew, but she definitely did.<p>

She watched him. She'd been watching him for the past few days, ever since he had spoken to Tess. There was a hint of suspicion in her eyes, but she said nothing, so clearly waiting for him to start the conversation, to tell her what had happened.

They hadn't spoken about Tess.

It wasn't like either of them to ignore the obvious danger lurking in the shadows, but Michael couldn't bring it up. Liz wouldn't understand – or maybe she would, and he didn't want to do that to her. Didn't want to hurt her.

He spoke to Maria instead.

It was so pointless, because Maria couldn't help him, but maybe Liz could, if he just _asked_.

"She was right there," he said into the silence of his bedroom, sitting slumped over on the floor near the door. "She was right there and I let her get the better of me. I let her attack and then leave."

He rubbed his eyes. This was the hardest part, admitting what had happened. What he had done; or, rather, what he hadn't done.

Because he could have done things differently. He could have done them better.

"I let Tess go," he whispered. "I… I just… I let her _go_. I let her walk away. I… I _let_ her."

Because he _had_.

He wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he could have easily fought Tess and won. He didn't know her strength, didn't know her rage. She could be far more powerful than him, and he would simply have no idea. At the very least, he knew she was certainly more unhinged than he was, and that was dangerous. That made her dangerous.

But it wasn't even that he had fought her and lost. It was that he hadn't fought her at all.

He hadn't wanted to.

He knew how Maria would respond to that. He could practically hear her screaming shrilly at him even now, expressing her displeasure from beyond the grave. Even death couldn't stop her hatred of Tess.

He hated Tess, too.

So did Liz.

And yet, he had let the fourth hybrid go. He had let her slip through his fingers and disappear right after she had _threatened_ him. And he knew that he had to protect himself and he had to protect Liz, and he knew that Tess was clearly determined to cause them pain. And he'd done nothing.

_Nothing_.

Because his body and his mind wanted two very different things, and there was no way to get both. So how was he supposed to know what to do?

"I miss you," he whispered, "and I really need your help right now."

* * *

><p>Liz lost her patience.<p>

It had taken her nearly a week. A week since Michael had spoken to Tess, a week since they had discovered that she was back in their lives. They were always on guard, always ready for an attack that never came, and the tension and the dread was slowly driving them both insane.

Liz didn't sleep. Michael didn't sleep, either, but then, he rarely slept even when everything was going well, and he'd barely slept at all since the nightmares after the white room.

And Liz lost her patience.

She came storming into his room, flinging the door open without even bothering to knock, and Michael, half-dressed and thoroughly bewildered, stared at her with his mouth open.

"Put a shirt on," Liz said sharply, "we need to talk."

"I have to be dressed for us to talk?" Michael asked, a faint smirk coming to his lips. A defense mechanism.

Liz narrowed her eyes. "Michael," she said in a warning tone, "don't do this. Don't make me pry the information out of you. Because I _will_. I haven't slept in a week and I am _not_ in a good mood. So talk to me. Tell me what it is that is going through your mind because I can't figure it out."

He sat down on the edge of his bed. "I saw Tess."

"Yes, I know," Liz said. "You told me this."

"No… I saw her after that. I spoke to her," Michael admitted softly. "I… we talked."

"You… talked?" Liz repeated, her tone displaying her disbelief. "You just… talked?"

Michael nodded mutely.

"What do you mean?" Liz pressed, needing more details. _Demanding_ more details. "What do you mean? How did you just… talk? Did she try to hurt you? Did you hurt her? Did you fight?"

"No," Michael said shortly. "She didn't hurt me, I didn't hurt her. We didn't fight." It wasn't entirely true, but he knew Tess hadn't really been trying to hurt him when she used her powers against him. She had just been trying to get away, to leave the conversation. If she had wanted to cause damage, she would done far more than knock him down.

"Michael…" Liz was growing upset.

"She said she was here to make us pay for sending her to the white room," Michael said. He scratched his eyebrow. "She said she could feel us, that we were in her dreams. Everywhere she went, she could still feel us. We wouldn't leave her alone."

"Oh, she didn't get any rest?" Liz said bitterly. "_Good_."

"Liz…"

"Michael, why didn't you _do_ something?" Liz asked, tears pricking her eyes. "She a traitor and a murderer."

"I've killed, too," Michael replied numbly, interrupting Liz.

"That's not the same thing," Liz practically spat. "You killed in self-defense. And yes, it was still killing and we both still have blood on our hands. But Tess _used_ Alex. Manipulated him. And then she killed him. It _wasn't_ self-defense, he was _never_ any threat to her. What you did… what we've both done… _wasn't_ been premeditated. We didn't plot to kill those people. We didn't want to kill them. That was never…" She stopped abruptly, wiped angrily at the tears forming in her eyes. "It's _not_ the same thing," she said again.

"We turned her over to the FBI," Michael said. "That _was_ premeditated."

Liz stepped back as though she had been slapped. "You're taking her side?" she asked incredulously. "You're _actually_ taking her side?"

"This isn't about sides," Michael said angrily, feeling his temper start to grow. He needed Liz to stop and listen, to think about what he was saying. He needed her to put aside her own anger and her own grief and just listen to him. Just for a moment.

No one else would understand. Maria had never been able to see past her emotions, and though he had loved her for it in the past – and still loved her for it now – it meant that this was not something she could have ever comprehended. Isabel could never see past Alex. Even after she had married Jesse and supposedly moved on, she had never been able to think about Tess without feeling that keen sense of loss at losing a first love, and he certainly didn't blame her for it. But that meant she wouldn't understand, either.

Max could never see past that feeling of betrayal. The person who had always supported him, always treated him like a king even when he was being a jerk had turned out to be a traitor in the worst possible way, and nothing could redeem Tess. And Kyle couldn't see past the way Tess had destroyed his family. She had spent so much time and effort building a home, bringing the two Valenti men together, and then she had torn it asunder without the slightest pause, ruining their lives without hesitation. He'd carried Alex's dead body, after all.

Of course, Max and Kyle _hadn't_ voted yes.

And, of course, all four of them were dead.

"Then what is it about?" Liz asked almost viciously. "If it isn't about Tess, if you _don't_ think she's in the wrong here, then tell me what this is about. Explain why you thought it was okay to lie to me."

"I was trying to protect you!" Michael practically exploded. Why couldn't she just listen?

"From what?" Liz seethed.

"From what we did!" Michael snarled, his anger and his pain and his terror coming to the surface. The walls he had built to get through the past several weeks were gone, crumbling with Liz's simple question, and he was yelling without even realizing it. "Do you have _any_ idea what the white room is like? _Do_ you? Do you know what they did to me? You can't even _begin_ to comprehend that kind of pain. Drowning, bleeding, bruises, _electricity_… And the despair. The sense that time doesn't mean _anything_, that you're just _stuck_. The rest of the world is going on, but you don't _matter_ to _anyone_. You're _nothing_. I kept screaming for _no reason_ at all because I knew no one could hear me. But sometimes I thought I was screaming just to be _heard_, so that I could show I _wouldn't_ go down without a fight."

Liz's expression had turned from one of outrage to one of horror and compassion, and Michael knew that what he was saying was going to hurt her but now that he had started he wasn't sure that he could stop.

"I wanted to give up, but I _couldn't_. And yet, I didn't… I didn't think you'd be able to find me. I didn't think you'd be able to get me out of there. I thought I would spend the rest of my life in that… that _agony_. Years of that, Parker. _Years_. Being treated like an _animal_ until I became one myself. Until I couldn't tell right from wrong, until I lost all sanity and all sense of self. That was all I had to look forward to, and I _saw_ what they did to Tess. I _knew_ what would happen to me and I _couldn't_ fight it. But I couldn't _not_ fight it either, because I _don't_ know how to give up. So I was trapped, _always_ trapped, with no way out. No way to find any peace at all in what was happening to me. Do you have _any_ idea what it is like to fight something you know is completely futile but _still_ not be able to stop yourself? _Do_ you?"

"You're not an animal," Liz whispered, and Michael felt a hysterical laugh bubble in his throat.

"I was there. I was in that place for a few weeks, but… God, Tess was there for _years_. _Years_. She's crazy and dangerous and a _complete_ lunatic, but _we_ did that to her. We… we were _wrong_, Liz. Don't you see that? We shouldn't have voted yes. We shouldn't have turned her in. We should have _listened_ to Max when he said that he wouldn't wish that on _anyone_. Not even _her_."

He stopped talking, and found that he was practically breathless. He buried his head in his hands and tried to calm his erratic breathing.

"I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to attack her. I wanted it so much, but I just… I can't, Liz. Because I… I look at her and I know what we did to her, and… it was torture. And we don't torture prisoners, even traitors. We just don't."

He felt Liz sit down next to him. "Is that… is that why you have nightmares about her? When you wake up screaming her name… is that why?"

Michael nodded.

"I thought…" Liz trailed off.

Michael sighed and finished her sentence. "You thought she had done something to me in the white room. You thought that my nightmares cast her as the villain."

"Yes."

"They don't," Michael said flatly. "They cast us as the villains."

Liz reached out and rested her hand on his arm. "Why didn't you just tell me all of this back when you first got out of the white room?"

"I didn't think you'd understand," Michael admitted slowly, looking at her. "And then… then when I thought that maybe you _would_ understand, I didn't want… I didn't want you to have to… to deal with what… what we did…"

"We're in this together," Liz said softly but firmly. "You and I… we are in this together." She hesitated, then said, "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met, Michael, and nothing you say or do will ever change that. I wouldn't have thought less of you because of any of this. Don't you know that?"

He swallowed, his throat dry, and tried to come up with some witty or mocking retort. A defense mechanism. Something to hide just how much those words meant to him.

He couldn't think of anything, so he ended up simply staying silent.

Liz stood up. "I'm going to go make some hot chocolate," she said decisively, "because everything is better with chocolate. And then we are going to sit down and figure out what to do now. _Together_."

And she walked briskly from the room.

Michael watched her go, then looked up towards the ceiling.

"I don't know if you'll ever understand. I just… I miss you, Maria. I do. I miss you so much. And I know how much you hate Tess, and I know that you…" He shook his head. "But I have to do what I think is right. And this is just one more time that you and I are going to disagree."

He got up and walked towards the door, thinking about the conversation he and Liz were going to have to have, and wondering just how he was going to survive it. How was he going to survive dealing with Tess?

But at least he had Liz on his side.


	7. When We Meet Them Face to Face

Chapter Seven: When We Meet Them Face to Face

_Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face._

- Nelson DeMille

_Today is May 27__th__, I'm Liz Parker-Evans, and I really hate psychology. The picking apart of actions and reactions to try to figure out the underlying emotions… It's not even a real science, not like molecular biology or chemistry. And I know that sounds odd, coming from someone who has learned in her short life that there are a lot of things out there we know absolutely nothing about, but psychology just feels… fuzzy. It's not a real science. Even if they stick an "ology" at the end._

_Ever since Michael's outburst last night, I can't help but wonder what the consequences of it will be. Not between Michael and I, of course, because I don't think anything can change how much we rely on each other. Maybe that's what happens when two broken people are completely alone in the world, trying to rebuild themselves and their lives from shattered pieces._

_Now I'm waxing poetic. Something I wouldn't have minded at all in the past. But spending time with Michael has made me more… snarky._

Several cups of hot chocolate had done nothing to ease Liz's headache. It was pounding, splitting, threatening to explode. She rubbed at her eyes, tried to force away the ache, but it did no good. Michael's words kept reverberating in her skull, repeatedly forcing her to face what he had said.

He was right. She knew he was right. She had known that all those years ago, when she had voted yes. She wasn't a killer, but she would do anything necessary to protect her family, and they had been in danger. Tess had been a threat – was still a threat, regardless of whatever Michael thought now – and the government had been closing in on them. This solution, no matter how horrific, had kept them all safe and removed Tess as a threat.

Logically, rationally, it was the best choice.

Emotionally… well, that was something else entirely.

They had been pretending to be adults, but at the time they were little more than teenagers. Scared teenagers, with the weight of the world on their shoulders and no idea what to do. She still felt that way now, even though they were older and had been fighting this war so much longer. It was absurd to think that they were prepared to do this. They weren't actual soldiers, no matter how much anyone on Antar seemed to believe otherwise.

She wasn't a murderer, but she had killed. There was a difference between the two, particularly in war. But again, rational and logic mattered less than emotion, and the blood on her hands had left her with nightmares for years.

Still… Tess was different.

But so was Alex.

The problem, _now_, was trying to figure out how to live with the decision they had made _then_.

She knew Michael was struggling with it. She could see the turbulent emotion in his eyes, the feelings that had been there since the white room. She had wanted so badly to help him, but hadn't known how at the time. She hadn't known what was really bothering him.

Now she knew… and she still had no idea how to offer comfort.

It made her frustrated. He had managed to comfort her when she had first seen Tess, and occasionally she thought that she was somehow helping him, but now that Tess was actually, really, truly back…

The sound of footsteps in the apartment caught Liz's attention and she quickly closed the journal and shoved it into her desk. The last thing she needed was for Michael to see any of what she had written.

He poked his head into her room. "Work was fine. No sign of Tess. You?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. It's like she's… I don't know." It was like Tess had just disappeared, but it had been less than a day, and there was no way the blonde was going to leave them alone. Not after what she had threatened.

Michael sighed heavily and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest. "She said she wanted to get even. But she's not thinking clearly. She's… unhinged. And I want…"

"You want to help her," Liz said bluntly.

Michael gave her a long look, and then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. I just…"

"Have no idea how?" Liz offered when Michael couldn't finish the sentence. He gave a mute nod of agreement at her assessment, and he looked so worn out that she desperately wanted to say something comforting.

But what?

"The first thing we need to do is find her," Liz said after a moment of silence. "Then we can take it from there."

She didn't know what would come next, but she did know that if they were going to have any chance of untangling this mess, they needed to find Tess before she came after them again. Because although she was beginning to feel that acidic guilt that ate away at her insides when she thought about the past, it wouldn't change the fact that if Tess tried to hurt them, she _would_ defend herself. And Michael.

Of course, the entire plan – as indistinct and vague as it was – hinged on their ability to actually convince Tess to let them help her. And that…

Well, that could prove to be a problem.

She decided to voice her concerns aloud. "What if she doesn't want our help, Michael? What if we find her and she won't listen to us?"

"She wants our help," Michael said flatly.

"But how do you…?"

"She hasn't _done_ anything to us yet," Michael said. "She's been here… I don't know, I don't know how long, but she has been here a while and she hasn't tried to attack us. Sure, she's been playing mind-games, but it's not the same thing. And then she was waiting outside our apartment building and she and I… we just _talked_. She kept asking me to leave her alone, to stop hurting her. She came here for help, Liz, whether she will admit to that or not."

Liz nodded. "Okay," she murmured. "Okay."

* * *

><p>"This is ridiculous," Michael grumbled. "I've been wandering around in circles. We're wandering around in circles. The whole thing is just absurd."<p>

He pulled his coat closed and shivered a bit. Montana wasn't like Roswell, summer didn't come in May. It was still cold, and now the gray clouds lingering above were so clearly threatening rain. And he had been pointlessly wandering around the small town, searching out the blonde hybrid who so clearly wanted to stay hidden.

"And what am I going to say if I find her. I don't… I don't do this whole talk-about-your-feelings thing. That's more your area." Then he paused thoughtfully, before adding wryly, "Although I have a feeling that if you were here, you'd forgo talking in favor of attacking."

It had been two days since he and Liz had agreed to try to help Tess, and they still hadn't managed to locate her. Michael had taken time off from his job at the garage and had wandered all around the town, asking people if they had seen Tess. They had very few photographs of her, but finally Liz had dug out one taken during their junior Prom.

He looked down at the picture in his hands.

It was faded and worn, although he could still see the faces clearly enough. Everyone looked so happy… and alive.

There were creases in it, and he wondered how many times Liz had hurried stuffed it into a suitcase or a backpack as they fled yet another FBI ambush. When he had asked her if she had a photograph of Tess, she had pulled this out from between the pages of her journal, and that was enough to tell him how much the photograph meant to her. The journal was her life, so to use it as a storage place for something indicated that that something was hugely important.

He sighed and scratched his eyebrow.

They had opted against being discreet. They were asking questions, knowing that rumors would fly and information would spread and Tess would hear it. He was hoping that she would come to him again, but he knew better than to count on it.

They had no idea what she would do.

He still remembered Liz's expression when he so adamantly insisted that Tess wanted their help. And some part of him couldn't help but wonder if she actually agreed with him, or if she was simply acquiescing to his wishes because she could see how important this was to him.

He had been there. He had been through that hell, and he finally understood what Max had meant when he had voted _no_ all those years ago.

And some even smaller, traitorous part of him whispered faintly in his mind that Maria would never have caved on this, no matter how much it mattered to him.

He let out a breath, feeling instantly guilty for that thought. "I'm sorry," he said aloud. "I don't think you're a bad person. I never did. I loved you, irritating habits and all. But if it was you here instead of Parker… things _would_ be different. And I'm not sure I could live with that. With walking away from Tess."

There was no answer, there would never be an answer. Maria was gone, forever, and nothing he did would change that. He couldn't help her now, just like he'd failed to save her then.

The words _I miss you_ lingered on his lips, but he didn't say them.

* * *

><p>The smell of gasoline and grease invaded her solitude, and that was how Tess knew that she was no longer alone.<p>

She looked up from where she had been sitting on the steps of the apartment complex and met Michael's stony gaze. She was on the opposite side of town from where he and Liz lived, and the only explanation for his presence was that he had been looking for her.

But hadn't she known all along that he would be?

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"It's a small town," Michael replied. "I asked around enough times, and finally someone remembered a new person renting an apartment here. Granted, that person didn't leave a name or number, no one had any idea if it was a man or woman or what they looked like… but I figured it had to be you."

Tess nodded. "Where's Liz?"

"Outside," Michael replied. "She insisted on coming with me. She's afraid you're going to try to kill me."

Tess' lips curved into a smirk. "She's right to be afraid," she said coolly. Then she looked away. "The others – Ava and the rest of them – they lived New York for a reason. Big city, easier to hide. Why are you in Montana?"

"We like Montana," Michael said, edging towards her. She watched him with narrow eyes, searching for any hint of aggression in his expression. There was a hardness in the lines of his face, and she knew she should be worried, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

"Why is Liz outside if she is so convinced that I am going to attack you?" she asked finally.

"I thought I'd talk to you first." Michael tilted his head to the side, regarding her. She wondered vaguely what he was thinking. He seemed to sense that, because he said, "I want to help."

She laughed. It sounded deranged, even to her own ears. "Help?" she repeated, shaking her head. "_Help_?" It was too funny, and she thought vaguely that she might just go on laughing forever. She rose to her feet and backed away from him, moving slowly up the steps.

The old apartment building had smelled like pine and must when she first moved in. She hadn't minded it, and had managed to successfully air out her apartment. The scent was now replaced with something sweeter – a kind of flower, maybe? – and it lingered around her everywhere she went.

But the scent of gasoline was overwhelming.

"You came from the garage," Tess said numbly, and when Michael looked surprised, she added, "I can smell it on you." She didn't want to think about _that_, either. Didn't want to wonder how she was suddenly so good at figuring out scents when her eyes _still_ had trouble sorting out colors.

At least nothing here was white.

Michael scratched at his eyebrow. "I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me," he said.

Tess blinked, then sneered, "Can I hurt Liz? Is that acceptable?"

Something flashed in Michael's eyes. Something dark and dangerous, something that made her think of the white room. Of the agents and the white walls and the pain. Of green eyes. Her hands clenched and unclenched compulsively, and she shivered without really knowing why.

The look in his eyes wasn't human. It was animal, all animal. A wounded animal, she thought bitterly. One that becomes more dangerous as it becomes more desperate.

Was that all people were? Animals? Was there really no line of distinction, nothing to separate man from beast?

"If you hurt Liz," Michael said firmly, "I will kill you."

"You've wanted to kill me for _years_," she spat, suddenly angry. "You tried, remember?" And her hands floated up to her throat, and the memory of Michael's fingers digging into her skin and her own supply of oxygen suddenly disappearing burst into the forefront of her mind. "You can say what you want now," she snarled, "but it won't change anything. You want me dead. I _know_ that."

"Then why are you here?" Michael asked. "If you know I want you dead, why are you here?"

Her hands continued moving upwards until her fingers had woven into her hair. She felt like clutching at her head. She wanted to make it stop, wanted to end this argument or discussion or whatever it was. She wanted the world to go back to the way it was before all this. Before Alex, before Antar, before white.

"Leave me alone," she whispered. She had wanted to scream, wanted to force the words out, but she _couldn't_. Her throat was dry and sore and her voice wouldn't obey her silent commands.

"I'm not doing anything to you," Michael protested. "Liz and I haven't done anything to you since…"

"Since voting _yes_?" Tess spat, her voice barely audible despite the fury and loathing in her tone.

She couldn't breathe. And Michael was standing in front of her and she wanted to kill him. She wanted to make him hurt. She'd done it before, in the white room. She'd let them take him, hadn't warned him, had nearly laughed in his face. Why couldn't she do that again? Why couldn't she find her hatred? Where had it gone?

It had eaten away at her insides until there was nothing left. Sometimes she thought it was hate that had kept her sane through the white room. Hatred had burned in her veins and reminded her of who she was and why she was there, and she _hadn't_ forgotten.

She wouldn't forget now.

Without thinking, she practically flew down the steps. She launched herself at Michael, colliding with him. It clearly took him by surprise and he did nothing but fall under her weight. The two of them went tumbling towards the hard floor, and her entire body vibrated with the force of their weight slamming into the ground.

Her hands were glowing. She didn't know how or why, but they were. And they were moving towards Michael's throat. She was hitting him, hard, and then she was trying to strangle him, and she wasn't thinking about anything at all.

She just wanted to hurt him.

He was gasping, grappling at her arms, trying to fight her off – and still trying _not_ to hurt her, why? _Why_? – and she heard the door behind them open and someone call Michael's name, but all she could think of was how much she wanted to kill him.

And then his eyes blurred and turned blue.

Blue.

Alex.

She dropped her hands and rolled off of him, horrified. Her stomach heaved and she felt sick, and she knew it was Michael looking at her in confusion, but all she saw was Alex.

"Michael? Are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Parker."

Tess blinked and looked again. Alex was gone, and Michael was there with Liz kneeling at his side. Both were looking at her, Michael with worry and Liz with anger.

"What did you do to him?" Liz spat. "We came to help you! Michael wanted to help you even after everything you had done. You killed Alex and he wanted to…"

Tess watched in mute silence as Michael's fingers looped around Liz's wrist and the brunette abruptly stopped talking. She looked down at Michael and her expression softened somewhat. Some unspoken message seemed to pass through them, and then Liz nodded and helped Michael to his feet.

Tess opened and closed her mouth several times, but couldn't find the right words.

"You love him," she said finally.

Liz stiffened. "What?"

"You love him," Tess repeated. "You love Michael."

Liz narrowed her eyes at Tess. "Of course I love him. He's family. That concept may be one you are still struggling to understand, but…"

"Not that kind of love," Tess said flatly. Then she started to laugh again. None of this made sense. Perhaps she had already lost her mind. Was this some kind of delusion haunting her?

Everything smelled like salt and when she lifted a hand to her face she realized with a start that she had begun to cry.

* * *

><p>Michael couldn't quite bring himself to look at Liz.<p>

Tess' pronouncement had stopped all forms of conversation, and for a moment, all Michael had been able to do was gape in utter surprise. Some part of him had thought – hoped? – that it was a mind-game of Tess', that she was lying, that it was all a trick. But she wasn't lying, and that much had been clear from the horrified and slightly embarrassed look on Liz's face.

Was it possible that Liz felt the same way about him that he did about her?

Tess' laughing and crying had finally subsided, and she had docilely followed them from the apartment complex out into the Montana sun. Her rapid change in moods – calm to furious to tears to calm again – had been enough to convince Michael that she was truly unhinged. The white room had done something to her.

Or had it started before that? Had it been Alex's death, or maybe life on Antar with Khivar, that had started unraveling her mind?

But when she had looked up at him with tears streaming down her cheeks and pleading and terror in her eyes, he had also realized something he had known unconsciously for a while, something that could not be ignored now.

She was not a threat.

She had not come here to kill them. She seemed a little unsure herself why she was here, but for all her threats, she had done little to cause any lasting pain.

Even in the white room, when she had pushed him towards the FBI agents… those agents had been coming for him, anyway. Tess had not caused any more damage than would have been inflicted on him regardless of her actions. Her fury and her hatred had not led her to do much of anything.

And Tess had followed them. First to Montana and then now, trailing behind them as they walked up the stairs of their own apartment complex. She had come without protest, had merely nodded to Michael's suggestion and followed them in silence.

There were still tears in her eyes, but they had stopped cascading down her face.

Liz had been reluctant to invite her back to their apartment, but as Michael had pointed out, she already knew where they lived. It wasn't like they were revealing any kind of secret.

And now they were here.

Tess was perched on the edge of the sofa. She was staring down at her hands, inspecting them. And Michael was watching her, because he couldn't bring himself to look at Liz.

"Tess," he said, "we want to help you." And he held his breath, hoping this wouldn't send her into a fit of derisive laughter as it had before.

She lifted her gaze to him. "How?" she asked, and her tone was sharp and angry.

Liz, who was standing opposite Michael, flinched at the tone of Tess' voice and curled her hands into fists. It was clear she was on edge and ready to attack the blonde at the merest sign of trouble, and Michael couldn't blame her for that. But Liz's anxiety was only adding to the stress in the room, and it was making Michael's stomach curl into knots.

Or maybe it was Tess' earlier statement that Liz loved him that was tying his stomach into knots.

"Maybe…" Michael hesitated, then said almost diffidently, "Maybe we could help you get settled somewhere. With a job and an apartment… maybe… maybe that would help."

Tess stared at him, then shook her head. "I don't need a job," she said flatly. "I can make money."

And her words were so simple and so coherent and the craziness had faded from her eyes for just a moment and Michael thought that maybe there was still some hope for her.

Then she reached up and wove her fingers through her blonde curls and muttered, "I just want you out of my head."

"We're not in your head, Tess," Liz snapped irritably.

Michael glanced up at her, and the two locked gazes, and then Liz looked away. But not before Michael had felt a jolt of something run through his spine.

"You are," Tess spat. "Always. _Always_…" She was practically tugging at her hair and Michael bit back to urge to grab her hands and stop her. She didn't look like a threat. She looked small and lost and scared and unraveled, but she didn't look anything like a threat.

She'd killed, though. And she'd betrayed them all to Kivar. She might not look like a threat but she still was one, and Michael knew he could never forget that. No matter how much he wanted to help her.

Liz turned abruptly from Tess and walked out of the room. Her exit was so unexpected, and Michael just gaped for a moment.

Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts and took a step in the direction Liz had gone. He paused for a moment, looking back at Tess, and she gave him a completely untrustworthy smile.

"Don't worry," she said, "I'll still be here when you get back."

He nodded, not at all believing her but unable to ignore the desperate need to check on Liz, and exited the room. He paused in the hallway outside of Liz's room, trying to gather his thoughts. He could hear her inside, pacing back and forth. Her footsteps were loud and angry and there was no denying the fact that she was upset.

They were both upset, of course. Tess' reappearance in their lives had done that.

He opened his mouth to say something, to whisper words to Maria. It was second nature to speak to her before entering a conversation like this, to tell her all his thoughts as though she could somehow guide his words despite being dead. But this time the words got stuck in his throat and he remained silent.

He couldn't talk to Maria. He didn't know what he would even say to her.

So instead, he took a breath and then shoved the door before him open, determined to talk to Liz.

* * *

><p>Liz had known it would only be a matter of time before Michael came marching into her room. She'd reached automatically for her journal, prepared to write down all her thoughts, but then paused. She'd chalked up her hesitation to knowing that Michael would be walking through the door any second and not wanting him to see her journal or get a glimpse of anything she had written, but there was something else stopping her as well. She just wasn't sure what it was.<p>

"Parker," Michael said, pushing the door open, "what happened?"

"I can't do this," Liz said bluntly. "I can't help her. I can't help you help her."

Michael blinked. "I… why not?" he asked, and she heard the definite edge to his voice.

"Because…" Liz muttered. She licked her lips and looked away from Michael, wrapping her arms around her chest in an almost defensive gesture. She knew Michael was annoyed by her lack of answer, and somehow, the fact that she was annoying him made her feel slightly better.

It was vindictive and she knew it. And she knew it was wrong.

And she didn't care.

"That's not an answer," Michael said.

Liz looked past him towards the closed door that separated them from the rest of the apartment. "You left her alone?" she demanded. "Are you crazy?"

"Not as crazy as she is," Michael answered. They were both silent for a moment, then Michael said in a softer tone, "Why can't you help her? You were okay with it before. What changed?"

Liz chewed her lip. Tess had told Michael that Liz loved him, and Michael hadn't been able to look at her since then. She wasn't sure what that meant – did he feel the same way or did he not care at all? – and part of her didn't want to know. Part of her wanted to lock away her heart and ignore all her emotions.

Life would be so much easier without emotions.

"Parker?" Michael prompted, his tone harder. More demanding.

She sighed. Whatever else anyone could say about her, she did not back down from an argument when she felt this passionately about something.

"I _didn't_ want to help her before, either," Liz said. "I just… I agreed to do it because it mattered to _you_. But now… Now she's actually here and I'm looking at her and I can't help but…" She trailed off and rubbed at her eyes with a tired sigh. "I can't help but be furious," she finished. "I can't forgive her."

"I'm not asking you to," Michael argued.

Liz looked at him disbelievingly, then gave a cold laugh. "Of course you are! You want us to go back out there and try to help her, to ignore _everything_ she did. Like it didn't matter. Like _Alex_ didn't matter." Her voice was getting louder, rising with every word until she was practically shouting at him. "You want to _help_ her. You want us to _care_. You look at her and you feel guilty about what _we_ did and so you just ignore what _she_ did. Alex is _dead_."

"I know that!" Michael hissed.

"Do you?" Liz countered. "Do you really?"

Michael reeled back as though she had slapped him, but Liz was far too caught up in her own tumultuous emotions to care. She pressed onwards, ignoring the hurt and simmering anger in his eyes.

"Alex wasn't your friend. He was our friend – mine and Maria's. And he was Isabel's boyfriend, never mind that fact that she walked all over him for _a year and a half_ before that. I _know_ that Tess betrayed all of us, that she was going to turn you three over to Kivar, but she killed _Alex_. Maybe we were wrong in turning her over to the army. Maybe the white room was hell and we never should have… but God, Michael, she _killed_ Alex and you expect me to sit out there and act like it's all okay now?"

"Alex was my friend, too," Michael snapped.

Liz rolled her eyes. "When did you ever talk to him?" she demanded. "When did you ever interact with him if the world wasn't ending or you didn't need something from him?"

Michael turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Liz stared at the door in silence for a moment, then tugged her journal out from underneath her mattress and opened it, prepared to write down her thoughts.

But they wouldn't come. She couldn't put them down onto the page. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

She threw her journal to the floor in frustration and flopped down on her bed, lifting her gaze towards the ceiling.

How had everything gotten so screwed up?


	8. I Thought I Heard the Angels

Chapter Eight: I Thought I Heard the Angels

_Oh God, I thought I heard the angels,  
>What kind of fool did you put in me?<em>

_- The Tallest Man on Earth, Where I Thought I Met the Angels_

Surprisingly, Tess was still sitting in the living room of the apartment when Michael emerged from Liz's bedroom. Michael paused for a moment in the entrance from the hallway and studied her. She was huddled over, her long blond hair falling in front of her face and obscuring her eyes from view. Her hands were clenched together, fingers interwoven, wrists resting on the tops of her knees.

It looked almost as though she was praying.

She glanced up at him, her face an emotionless mask, then let out a long breath. "Problems?" she asked.

Michael shook his head and forced himself to look away from her. Liz's angry words echoed in his mind, and though he tried his best to ignore him, he couldn't quite manage it. Each one was like a tiny knife burning red-hot as it stabbed him in the heart.

How could she possibly think that he didn't care about Alex?

Of course, Alex's murderer _was_ sitting in their living room.

"We want to help you," Michael said finally, clearing his throat.

Tess chuckled darkly. "No, you don't," she countered. Her eyes moved past him, towards the hallway, towards Liz's room. "She doesn't want anything to do with me and you just want…" She stopped, licked her lips. "You want to feel better about yourself. You want the nightmares to go away."

Michael didn't answer. He didn't feel like arguing with her – and more to the point, he didn't know what he would say to counter her claim. Liz _didn't_ want to help her… and he _did_ want the nightmares to stop.

They plagued him constantly. When his defenses were down and he couldn't stop the dark thoughts from seeping into his mind, he'd dream of Tess being dragged away into the darkness of a never-ending hallway while he watched with triumph and glee. He'd dream of killing her, of tearing her apart slowly until she screamed and begged for mercy. He'd dream of white walls and green eyes and bright red of spilled blood on the floor.

He'd wake up screaming.

"You can't help me," Tess said quietly, an odd quality in her voice. "All you can do is hurt. All you _ever_ do is hurt. Over and over and over…" She reached up and clutched at her head with one hand, knuckles turning white as her fingers pressed into the skin at her temples. "Make it _stop_."

"Why, Tess?" Michael asked finally. "Why did you do this? Why did you do _any_ of it?"

And as he asked the question, he realized with a start that he had never heard her answer. Had anyone ever asked her why she'd done these things? Had anyone ever wanted to know what it was that had lead her to betray them?

Maria had claimed that Tess was pretty much evil from the very beginning, almost as though it was in her DNA. That had no doubt been due to Maria's fierce devotion to her friends and disdain for the way Tess was so clearly attempting to steal Liz's boyfriend away from him.

But there was a difference between stealing a boyfriend and murdering someone.

Tess didn't meet his gaze as she asked, "Does it matter? Does _any_ of it matter?"

For a moment, he wondered if she was ashamed. Did she regret it? Max had said she'd once alleged that killing Alex had been an accident and not actually what she meant to do. He wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. She hadn't _wanted_ to kill Alex, which was good… but she also hadn't viewed him as anything more than a tool and his death hadn't in any way altered her plans.

Plans which included killing the rest of them; or, at least, handing them all over to Kivar, which amounted to the same thing.

"It matters to me," he said finally.

Tess snorted. "Why?"

"Just answer the question," Michael snapped, tired and irritated. His argument with Liz had robbed him of any patience he might have had for Tess' less-than-straightforward answers.

She curled her lip at him. "Or you'll what? Kill me?"

"Why are you being so damn difficult?" Michael snarled, slamming a fist against the wall. Tess started at the sound of flesh hitting plaster, and gave him a wide-eyed look. He felt a little bit of vindictive pleasure in that, in the fact that he had scared her.

The fear lingered in her eyes for a moment before it was replaced by an expression of the utmost detachment, and then she said unemotionally, "It's what I do, isn't it? Be difficult. Ruin things."

"Tess…" Michael started, and then stopped and took a deep breath. Why did it matter? Why did any of it matter?

Maybe Liz was right and this was a stupid idea.

"Why are you here?" Michael asked finally. "Why did you come to Montana?"

"It's nice. Quiet. Reminds me of Roswell," Tess replied with a shrug. She rose to her feet and turned to face him fully, blue eyes flashing with something. Anger, maybe. Or hatred. "And you both are here."

She hadn't seemed sane in the white room. Now, standing before him with fury etched into every line of her face, she seemed insane _and_ deadly. It wasn't a good combination, and Michael had to force himself not to take a step backwards, away from her.

His skin began to crawl. A strange sensation was traveling along his arms, wrapping around him. It was the anticipation of pain to come, as though his body knew what his mind couldn't yet comprehend, and he'd felt it before. In the white room. Every time the man with the green eyes had come for him, he'd felt it.

His heart started hammering as adrenaline flooded his veins.

He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, trying to stay calm.

When he opened his eyes again, Tess was standing directly in front of him. He started, jerking uneasily, but kept his face cold and detached. He refused to let her see how much she had gotten under his skin, how much her presence affected him.

"I hurt people," Tess said quietly. "It's what I do."

Michael met her gaze squarely and said in a tone of utmost truth, "I want to help you, Tess, but I will kill you before I let you hurt Liz or I."

Her lips curled into a smirk. "I know," she said. "But do you really think you can?"

That was a question Michael hadn't really considered. He had no idea how powerful Tess was, though they had all underestimated her once before, and it had cost them dearly. But they had beaten her, too. They'd been able to turn her in to the army, though she hadn't put up too much of a fight…

How powerful was she?

And, more importantly, how unhinged was she? Because Michael knew, better than most, that the most dangerous people were the crazy ones. The ones who didn't think about the repercussions of their actions, who acted on instinct and emotion and didn't stop even when others got hurt. She'd done that even before the white room, and Alex had paid the price.

Her smile grew as she watched the indecision and uncertainty play across his features.

Then she turned sharply away.

Michael watched as she watched back to the sofa and sat down once more. He glanced behind him, down the hallway. Liz was still in her room, and didn't appear to be coming out any time soon. His stomach clenched in pain and bitter anger, but he fought through the emotions, forcing himself to ignore them.

He couldn't think about Liz right now.

Except that, lately, Liz had been the main thing he thought about.

"It was always the plan," Tess said quietly. "Nasedo's plan. I did it because it was what I was raised to do."

It took Michael a moment to realize that she was answering his early question, explaining to him exactly why she had betrayed them.

He blinked. "That's not a good enough reason. You have free will, Tess. It was your choice to make, and you made it," he said harshly.

She shrugged. "I did." There was no remorse in her voice.

And Michael was left to stare at her in silence and ponder the one truth he didn't want to face, the one thought he'd done his best to avoid all along.

Despite the fact that he desperately wanted to help Tess, he didn't know _how_.

* * *

><p>Liz knew the moment Tess left the apartment. She knew that the blonde wasn't walking out of their lives, not yet, and this wasn't over. But Tess was at least gone for now, probably back to her own apartment, and Liz felt something like relief.<p>

Except that it meant that Michael would now no longer be distracted by dealing with Tess, and there would be no way for the two of them to avoid each other.

Only a few hours ago, life had seemed simple. Granted, they were trying to track down a traitorous hybrid alien Queen who had killed one of their friends in a very misguided attempt to _help_ her… But things _had_ been simpler.

Then Tess had somehow picked up on the fact that Liz loved Michael, and if Michael's response was any indication, her emotion had not been unrequited.

And now they were arguing, and Liz couldn't stand the mere sight of him.

Knuckles rapped against her door and she rolled over on her bed in time to see Michael shove the door open and step into her room. His face was an unreadable mask, and she knew that _that_ was a sign of just how furious he was.

But she didn't care, because she was just as angry.

"She's gone," Michael said flatly. "Went back to her apartment." He scratched his eyebrow. "This isn't over, though. She's still here, in Montana."

"So?" Liz asked coolly, sitting up.

Michael shrugged. "Just thought you should know," he said, and turned on his heel to stalk away from her. He slammed the door to her room shut behind him.

Liz flopped back onto her bed. When she had first seen Tess in the parking lot outside the grocery store, when she had been so convinced that she was going insane because the vision of Tess had disappeared almost immediately, Michael had hugged her and promised her that they were in this together. And she felt safe in his arms, safer than she had since Max had died. Or, possibly, since before that, since leaving Roswell years earlier. She couldn't really explain why she felt like that, but after having gone through the hell of that last battle, of seeing everyone she cared about killed, of helplessly watching Michael get dragged away by FBI agents, the simple fact that he had promised to stand by her side had meant so much more than she could say.

She loved him. Tess had been so completely right about that, even if Liz wasn't yet ready to admit it.

It felt like a betrayal to Max, and to Maria. It felt different, wrong… and yet it was there. Pretending it wasn't there hadn't made it go away.

So it hurt so much more when she finally realized that she couldn't support him in this most recent endeavor. That she _couldn't_ take his side, _couldn't_ stand next to him as he faced this new challenge. She wanted to, she desperately wanted to.

But Tess had killed Alex, and no matter how she felt about Michael or the white room or the issues of morality that they had completely ignored the night they had given Tess to the army, she could not forgive the blonde alien.

Tess had killed Alex.

And Michael wanted to help her.

So any guilt she might have felt – any longing to have his arms wrapped around her once more – was completely buried underneath the acidic venom that filled her heart. She could forgive Tess for trying to steal Max. She could forgive Tess for sleeping with Max. She could forgive Tess for plotting to betray them.

She could not forgive Tess for killing Alex.

It made her furious. It filled her mouth with a bitter taste of hatred and repulsion and came close to making her physically sick. She closed her eyes and saw the blood in the car and Alex's body at the morgue and heard the sound of Maria's choked sobs at the funeral and saw Alex's father hunched over with grief.

And she hated Tess with every fiber of her being. Hated her more than she had ever hated anyone or anything.

And Michael just didn't seem to understand.

She climbed to her feet, kicked her journal underneath her bed, and walked to the bedroom door. She needed to get out of here. The small space was suffocating her.

Michael was sitting on the sofa where Tess had been at the beginning of the conversation. He was resting his head in his hands, but he looked up sharply at the sound of her footsteps on the floor.

"I'm going out," she said simply.

Michael nodded wordlessly, then said, "I cared about him, too."

Liz took a moment to answer, then said, "I _still_ care about him."

Something dark flashed through Michael's eyes, and then he demanded in a low voice, "What do you _want_ from me?"

The raw anguish in his voice caused Liz to take a surprised step back, and she reached out a hand to steady herself against the nearest wall. She didn't want to consider the fact that she was the cause of that pain in his voice, just like she was the cause of the look of his defeat in his eyes.

But then she thought of Alex. Sweet Alex, who she had lied to and manipulated for months because Max had told her it was necessary in order to protect the three aliens. Alex, who had followed Isabel around like a puppy for over a year, doing anything she wanted and never standing up for himself. Alex, who had always been willing to help them and yet was so frequently ignored that she sometimes wondered if people even noticed when he was in the room.

And now he was dead.

Michael was still gazing at her, waiting for an answer, and she didn't know what to say.

"I want you to hate her as much as I do," Liz answered finally.

"I… I can't," Michael replied. "I don't trust her and I don't like her, but…" He gave a half-hearted shrug. "I just _can't_."

"Then what do _you_ want from _me_?" Liz asked.

Michael didn't answer.

"I'm going out," Liz said again, and as she walked from the apartment, she could only hope that the fresh air would somehow clear her head and make this entire situation hurt less.

* * *

><p>"<em>Michael?"<em>

"_Do it. Turn her in."_

Tess was right; his main incentive for wanting to help her was so that he could somehow feel better about himself. But Liz looked at him as though she had no idea who he was anymore, and some part of him thought it would be worth it to turn his back on Tess just so that Liz would care about him again.

Liz loved him. Tess had seen it. He wasn't sure how Tess had seen it, how she had latched onto the one thing that Michael had been completely oblivious to. But now it was out in the open. Now they all knew.

Liz loved him.

And he loved her.

Except that right now they hated each other.

It wasn't anything knew. He'd loved Maria and they'd been at each other's throats quite frequently, too.

But this was different. He and Maria had mostly argued over petty things that were eventually forgotten. This wasn't petty, and he didn't think Liz would be forgetting it any time soon.

He certainly wouldn't.

Michael sat down on his bed. Liz was still gone, presumably wandering around the town, looking for answers. It was well past dark, and some part of him was vaguely worried that she wasn't back yet. But the other part of him was worried more for himself, because he was far too emotionally spent to build the mental barriers necessary for keeping out nightmares.

It was going to be a bad night.

Already the memories were slipping out of his subconscious and playing through his mind.

"_I made my choice. But so did you, Michael. And now we both have to live with it. I hope you're happy with your new life."_

"_Happy? Do you have any idea what we've been through?"_

"_I think the more relevant question is do I care. You deserved whatever you got."_

He glanced towards the door. Should he go looking for Liz? He didn't know what he would say to her, but perhaps he would sleep a little bit better knowing she was safely behind doors.

It was a bit ironic, he thought bitterly, that before facing Tess he had convinced himself that everything would be alright because he had Liz on his side. But he didn't have Liz on his side and he hadn't even realized it at the time.

He leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes for a moment, utterly exhausted.

And fell asleep.

The nightmare hit him almost at once.

"_I am _nothing_ like you."_

"_And why not? Because Alex was different?"_

"_Yes! Yes, he was different!"_

"_But people have cared about the ones you killed, too."_

_Brilliant blue eyes faded to green. Insanity and tears were replaced by coldly calculating and malicious intent. It came in flashes, snippets of light and color and sound._

_And behind it all, everything was white._

"_Why are you doing this to me?"_

"_Mr. Guerin, answer me. I can make the pain stop if you just _answer_."_

_The horror and helplessness invaded his senses. He _knew_ it was a dream, but it didn't make any difference, because he was still trapped here._

_Pain lingered in his dreams. Pain and accusation and hatred. _

_And Tess' words._

"_It _hurts_. Did you know that? Did you know how much it would still hurt, even now that we're out of there? It eats away at you. Nightmares and agony. _You_ did this to me."_

_Light and color blended together. Sometimes his nightmares were just words. Liz's words, Tess' words…_

_His words._

"_The despair. The sense that time doesn't mean _anything_, that you're just _stuck_. The rest of the world is going on, but you don't matter to _anyone_. You're _nothing_. I kept screaming for _no reason_ at all because I knew no one could hear me. But sometimes I thought I was screaming just to be _heard_, so that I could show I _wouldn't_ go down without a fight."_

_It hurt. His chest was constricting and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't even say that none of it was real because it was _all_ real, even if it was a dream. Memories. He'd barely survived it once, and now they came, night after night, to torment him again._

_The colors grew brighter. Everything turned white._

"Michael!"

He started awake, arms flailing, energy coalescing in the palm of one hand. He was already on the defensive, ready to attack, as he felt hand wrapped around his shoulders, shaking him.

"_Alright, Liz. Cast your vote, break the tie."_

"_I vote yes."_

He blinked, and found himself staring up at Liz.

Then his stomach heaved and he rolled over into a sitting position, resting his head on his knees until the nausea passed.

He heard Liz's footsteps disappear from the room, and then she returned a moment later holding a glass of something in her hand. She pressed it into his hands, wrapping his fingers around it tightly as though trying to convince him to take it. And he was fairly certain that he should drink it, but he couldn't quite get his hands to move.

He was too busy thinking about the nightmare.

"It's just water," she said softly, pushing his hand holding the glass towards his lips. "Drink some."

He did, and was surprised at how good it felt sliding down his parched throat.

"You were screaming," Liz said. "Another nightmare." She cleared her throat. "About Tess? The white room?"

Michael nodded. He looked up at Liz, and saw the worry in her expression. It was gone quickly, smoothed away, but he _had_ seen it.

But he had no idea what to do now. Usually, when either of them had a nightmare, they would spent the rest of the night eating popcorn and watching movies. Or sometimes just talking quietly. He didn't want to do that now, and he doubted Liz did, either. In fact, she now looked as though she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from him as possible.

He put the glass of water down on the nightstand next to the bed.

Liz looked away. "I'm going to get some sleep," she said awkwardly, and moved towards the door.

Michael watched her leave.


	9. Let God Be the Judge

Chapter Nine: Let God Be the Judge

_I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and who goes to hell._

_-Joel Osteen_

It didn't get better.

It didn't get worse, not exactly. The tension was steady, but it didn't increase; there was a distance between them now, but it didn't grow. They didn't get into arguments, didn't throw insults at each other, didn't storm away in a rage.

But still…

They didn't _talk_.

Silences were awkward. More than once, Liz opened her mouth to say something and then realized she had nothing _to_ say. More than once, she saw Michael do the same, and then turn away from her sharply, frustration evident in his features.

Michael had never been chatty. His trademark monosyllabic manner hadn't changed, even while dating Maria. But Liz had never had a problem talking to him, and that feeling of comfort had grown ever since the white room, ever since they realized that they were the only two left. That comfort had grown into other, deeper feelings, and Liz wasn't used to feeling so wrong-footed around Michael.

The day after the meeting with Tess, Michael went back to the blonde's apartment. Liz came as well, not because she had anything to say to Tess but because she was unwilling to leave Michael alone with the petite hybrid. She didn't trust Tess, and no matter what Michael said about Tess being reluctant to hurt them now, Liz was fairly certain the blonde wouldn't hesitate to attack if she felt she could get away with it.

So Liz sat on the steps outside the building while Michael walked up to the apartment. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, letting her senses stretch outwards all around her. If she felt anything suspicious from Tess or worrying from Michael, she wouldn't hesitate to attack.

Michael returned a moment later, his expression one of concern. "She's not there," he said quietly. "I broke into her apartment. It's completely empty. Like she moved out."

Liz rolled her eyes. Of course it was. How could they have expected anything else?

She rose to her feet and brushed the cement dust from her clothing. "You need to get to work," she said quietly, glancing down at her watch. "We can deal with Tess later."

"I think she's more important than my job at the garage," Michael said with a snort.

Liz pursed her lips and looked up at him. He met her eyes, and a shiver of something ran down her spine. She shoved the feeling away, refusing to think about it, and said flatly, "If we want to continue living in this town, you can't flake on your job, Michael. We're trying to fit in, and people here don't just skip work. You _know_ that."

Michael's gaze hardened slightly, but he gave a stiff nod of acquiescence and turned away from her. He started walking briskly and she followed, and they left Tess' old apartment building behind.

They parted at the garage, Michael still sullen and Liz still too tired to figure out the right words to say.

Back at her own apartment, Liz stared around the place and wished fervently that she could go back in time to before Tess' appearance, to before the complications that had arisen. She would wish for more – for her family to be alive, for her to be safe, for their enemies to be gone – but wishing for all that just hurt.

She walked into her bedroom and stared at the journal now sitting on her desk. She hadn't hidden it beneath her mattress because it didn't really seem to matter whether or not Michael read it. There was nothing more to write. She'd tried once or twice since the conversation with Tess, but the words just wouldn't come.

She'd written in her journal when she was sixteen and head-over-heels in love with the mysterious Max Evans. She'd written in her journal when she was still wide-eyed and innocent, when she was naïve enough to believe that she could face anything, survive anything. She'd written in her journal when she'd still thought it was possible to attend Harvard, become a molecular biologist, and be normal.

She wasn't that same girl, and writing in the journal felt like clinging to a person who was gone. It felt like clinging to a person who had been gone for a long time, and she'd only just now been forced to admit to it.

But not writing in the journal just felt _wrong_.

She stared around her room and wondered how she managed to feel so inept at living her own life.

* * *

><p>Tess lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the bright sun and stared across the lot of cars awaiting fixing. Michael was just finishing his shift, and she smiled to herself as she watched him wipe his grease covered hands on his jeans and nod his head in farewell to the garage owner. He turned towards her, his expression quietly contemplative, but he froze upon seeing her.<p>

Then he started walking briskly towards her.

She moved backwards into the shade of a group of trees at the edge of the street, and waited for him. She was tense, ready for anything. But she'd also seen the guilt written plainly over Michael's features, and she was fairly certain that he wouldn't hurt her.

At least, he wouldn't attack without warning, and she was confident in her ability to defend herself.

"You moved out of your apartment," Michael said when he reached her.

She raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't hard. I never really moved in, just dumped some clothing there. So it wasn't hard to move out."

"Why would you move out if you aren't leaving?" Michael demanded.

Tess studied his expression. She could see the confusion, the anger, and the fear. She also knew he genuinely wanted to help her, though his main motivation was to make himself feel better about what he had done.

But wasn't that everyone's main motivation? She'd lived with Nasedo long enough to be incredibly skeptical about the idea that anyone was truly altruistic. Survival required selfishness, and if being happy require making other people happy, humans and Antarians would do it.

If being happy meant making others miserable, that, too, was something humans and Antarians would do.

She curled her lips into an icy smile. "Maybe I don't want you to be able to find me so easily."

Michael stiffened. "I found you once, I can do it again," he snapped, his tone a clear threat.

She smirked, wearing a mask of confident indifference in the hopes that he wouldn't see past it. She had moved because she always moved. She couldn't stay in the same place, not anymore. Not with memories of the white room constantly pressing down on her, invading her thoughts and her dreams. Nothing felt safe, and even if she stayed in this town, she certainly wasn't going to stay in the same apartment day after day.

She didn't like the idea that other people would know where to find her.

"Why are you doing this?" Michael asked finally, giving a weary sigh.

She shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Something very close to rage flashed through his eyes, but she saw him struggle to contain it, to remain in control. He took a few deep breaths and looked away from her.

"If your plan was to hurt Liz and I, you've already succeeded at that," he said coolly.

She laughed. "Problems in paradise?"

She was more than a little annoyed that Liz had fallen for Michael – although she was somewhat amused by the fact that the brunette apparently hadn't gotten around to admitting it – but the more she watched Michael, the more she realized that he actually _returned_ the sentiment.

And that didn't so much annoy her as it made her downright livid.

First Kyle, then Max, now Michael. Did every boy Parker ever met end up falling in love with her?

It wasn't fair and it wasn't right and if Liz was going to fall for Michael then why couldn't she have done it years ago, so that Tess could have had Max? Why did it have to be _now_, after everything had fallen apart?

Did she know that she had always had everything that Tess wanted? Did she know that watching her slowly move on from Max was near torture for the blonde hybrid queen?

Michael shoved his hands into his pocket and glowered at her, and Tess thought idly that it looked almost as though he wanted to bare his teeth in a growl.

Well, the white room was good at bringing the animal out in anyone.

"Liz and I agree on everything," Michael said icily, "except you. She wants you to suffer even more for what you did to us. Though… I have to say… I'm starting to see her point of view."

Tess shrugged off the threat. She wasn't worried about either of them, not really. And it was a little bit amusing that Michael thought he could fix all of his problems with Liz just by agreeing with her. It was as though he had absolutely know idea what Liz was thinking or feeling and…

Then she caught a glimpse of Michael's expression and realized with a start that he was actually legitimately confused about Liz. She frowned, a bit surprised. "You really don't understand why little Lizzie Parker is behaving the way she is?" she asked incredulously.

Michael glared at her in response.

She regarded him for a long moment. "You," she said flatly, "are a complete idiot."

* * *

><p>Michael returned to the apartment he shared with Liz, Tess' words floating around in his mind. She had called him an idiot and then walked away, and part of him had long to run after her, to stop, but he couldn't. Not in broad daylight. He had no doubt that she would use her powers on him if she felt threatened – Tess clearly wasn't thinking about the long-term consequences of their actions – and Michael didn't want to have to flee this town, too.<p>

Max's spur-of-the-moment healing of Liz in the Crashdown all those years ago had proven what would happen if anyone caught them using their abilities.

He watched her go, feeling both irritated by the fact that she was getting away again and bewildered that she seemed to have a better understanding of what Liz was thinking than he did.

Maybe it was all lies. Maybe she was just trying to get inside his head, to make him doubt himself. After all, how could Tess of all people understand _anything_ about Liz? She wasn't exactly rational. Or sane.

Liz wasn't there when he returned to the apartment, but she showed up a couple hours later and gave him a brief nod of greeting. There was a moment of awkwardness as she stood in the center of their living room, shifting her weight from foot to foot, but it passed quickly as she turned and headed towards her own room.

"I saw Tess," Michael said.

Liz froze. She didn't even look particularly surprised, just gave a resigned nod and turned to face him again.

"Where?"

"At the garage." He scratched at his eyebrow. Just two days ago, Liz would have responded with concern. She wouldn't have asked him questions precisely, and she certainly wouldn't have pried into his feelings about it, but something about her response and attentions would have made him _want_ to tell her everything. He had always felt comfortable talking to her before, and that was all gone now.

He just stared at her. He didn't know what else to say.

"Did she tell you where she had moved? to" Liz asked finally.

No _are you okay_ or _do you want to talk about it_? Just a simple, factual, unemotional question.

"No," Michael said. "Shouldn't be too hard to find her, though."

Anger flashed through Liz's eyes, and then it was gone and she lowered her gaze. "And you just let her walk away?"

"I didn't think starting a fight with her was a good idea," Michael answered calmly. "Certainly not in public."

Liz swallowed. "You never do," she murmured quietly. She sighed, then glanced towards the door of the apartment. "I think we might need to consider the possibility that we're not longer safe here."

"Where would we go?" Michael asked pointedly. "She found us here, in Montana, she can probably find us anywhere. We need to stay here and face this now."

"Face it?" Liz snapped, her eyes jumping to his gaze. "_Face_ it? We're not _facing_ anything. We're letting her wander around the town without doing anything about it, about _her_."

"What do you want to do, Liz?" Michael demanded irritably. "Kill her?"

Liz exhaled slowly. "She's the enemy, Michael. I know you feel sorry for her, but she _is_ the enemy. She is dangerous. She's betrayed us before, and there is nothing stopping her from doing it again. Don't forget that."

"I'm not going to hunt her down and slaughter her," Michael spat. "That's not the kind of person I am, regardless of what you want."

"I'm not saying you should turn into a cold-blooded killer," Liz snarled. "Stop putting words into my mouth!"

In some ways, the argument was actually a relief to Michael. At least they were talking now. At least they were past the awkward silences. At least they were speaking to each other, even if the words were filled with barely contained anger and a complete inability to understand the other's point of view.

But he didn't want to argue. He wanted things to go back to the way they had been before all of this. He wanted to understand why Liz of all people was so determined to hate Tess. Liz was usually one of the more forgiving of the group – or, at least, she had been before this. But everyone else was dead now, and that, combined with Tess' appearance in their lives, had changed Liz more than Michael had realized.

Or maybe he was the one who had changed. After the white room, he wasn't sure of anything anymore.

He scratched his eyebrow.

"I don't understand what you want," he said sourly. "God, even Tess seems to get you better than I do. At least she thinks she does."

Liz's eyes narrowed. "_What_?"

Michael frowned at her. Judging by her expression, continuing this part of the conversation was not a good idea. On the other hand, he'd already started it, and he was caring less and less if he annoyed her.

"Tess says she gets you. Gets why you're acting like this. She thinks I'm an idiot for not understanding you, but maybe it's just that you both are crazy."

Liz's faced had drained of all color, but by the time Michael finished his explanation, her skin was starting to flush a dark red of anger. Her lips pressed together into a thin line and she turned away from him. In a voice of barely contained rage, she hissed, "I am _nothing_ like Tess."

Then she stormed into her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

Michael stared after her, rubbed his eyes wearily, and wondered vaguely if he was ever going to understand women.

* * *

><p>They went back to not talking.<p>

For two days after the fight, Liz and Michael will still skirting around each other in silence, and it was driving Liz insane. But there was nothing she could think of to break the silence, so it continued to linger.

It continued to linger and it continued to eat away at them, destroying the relationship they had built in the aftermath of the FBI's attack on their little group. They didn't speak to each other, and neither of them even considered the idea of mentioning all of this to Jim Valenti, the only other person who would have any idea what Tess' presence in their lives really meant.

Tess did not show up again. Liz knew better that to believe that this temporary absence meant that Tess was out of their lives, and although the brief respite should have come as a relief, it only made her even more upset. Why couldn't Tess just do what she was here to do – attack them or whatever it was she wanted – and then be done with it?

Of course, Liz was also well aware of the fact that this probably _was_ Tess' plan. To slowly drive them insane, to get them to turn against each other. She wouldn't do something as obvious and violent as a simple attack. She'd want to cause a more long-term suffering.

Or perhaps Liz was being uncharitable, and Tess wasn't trying to do anything quite so horrible. Perhaps she did want to attack them, and was simply waiting for the right moment.

Either way, if it was Tess' goal to cause them pain, she was clearly succeeding.

The second day after their argument dawned bright and sunny. The clear blue sky stretched out around them for miles, uninterrupted by a single cloud. It had rained during the night, and the rain had cleared away the Montana dust that had filled the air, making it hard to breathe without coughing.

Michael went to work, and Liz went to run a few errands, and it was at the Wal-Mart that she ran into Tess.

The blonde was leaning against one of the railings at the edge of the parking lot, and Liz, emerging from the store with her arms full cleaning supplies, clothing, and canned food, stopped in surprise. Sunlight highlighted Tess' blonde curls and she was wearing a tank top and a short skirt and was getting quite a few appreciative looks from the male patrons of the store.

Liz caught Tess' gaze, and then the blonde straightened and gave Liz a cool smile.

Liz quickly dropped the groceries she was carrying, ignoring the bewildered and suspicious looks she was receiving, ignoring the fact that the items she had bought were now spilling out across the cement ground, and strode forward in determination.

"I want you to leave," Liz said without preamble, her eyes shining with fury. "I want you to walk out of this town and never come back. Do you understand me? I want you to leave."

Tess rolled her eyes. "I know what you want," she said. "I've known what you wanted all along, but it hasn't mattered to me. What makes you think I'm going to start caring now?"

Liz grabbed Tess by the shoulders. "I'm warning you, Tess. Stay away from me and stay away from Michael."

"Or you'll what?" Tess asked softly, challengingly. "Kill me? Murder me in cold blood? Come on, Lizzie Parker, do you really expect me to believe you've changed _that_ much?" Then she paused, tilting her head to the side in a thoughtful manner and said, "Of course, you did vote to hand me over to the army all those years ago, so perhaps you never were the person I thought you were."

"You certainly didn't turn out to be the person I thought you were," Liz snarled. "I trusted you. _We_ trusted you. And you…" She stopped, shook her head to get her temper under control. Her fingers bit into Tess' shoulders and she tightened her grip, and tiny flecks of green energy appeared at the tips of her nails. "_Leave_," she spat.

Tess didn't even seem to notice the fact that she should have been in pain. She merely smiled at Liz and said, "Do you really think you can beat me? Do you think you're strong enough? Can you hurt me before I hurt you… or Michael?"

They were standing in broad daylight in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart, and that knowledge was the only thing that stopped Liz from unleashing her powers on Tess. Instead, she dropped her arms from Tess' shoulders and took a step back.

"I will kill you if I have to," she said quietly.

"No," Tess answered calmly, self-assuredly, "you won't. And neither will Michael. You keep making these threats, but you won't do it. And you want to know why?"

Liz narrowed her eyes and knew exactly what Tess was going to say before she said it.

"Because, Liz, you know that you are exactly like me."

"You have _no idea_ what you're talking about," Liz said in a dangerously quiet voice.

"Don't I?" Tess countered, moving forward until she was close enough to lower her voice to a whisper. "I know what you're feeling, what you're thinking. I know why you hate me so much. I know what you're going through, and I know what that feels like. And I know that you won't kill me."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Liz retorted hotly. "If you and I are exactly alike… well, you _did_ kill Alex. So maybe I can be a murderer, too."

Tess flinched, and lowered her gaze for a moment. It was the first hint of vulnerability, of anything other than rage or insanity, that Liz had seen on Tess' features since her appearance from the white room, and it took the brunette by surprise. She hadn't expected it.

But then Tess looked up, her blue eyes as hard and cold as ice, and said, "I didn't mean to kill Alex."

"But you _did_ kill him," Liz said, unwilling to yield even a little on this point. It didn't matter what Tess had or had not intended to do. In the end, she'd killed Alex, and that was all that Liz cared about.

"Yes, and you made sure I paid for that," Tess murmured. "It was a stupid plan, though. Turning me over to the army? It had one major flaw and you had to have known that. Or did you really just not see it?"

Liz raised an eyebrow. "It seemed to work out well enough for me," she said coldly. "At least until you escaped."

"You should have killed me first," Tess said.

"So that you wouldn't have had to suffer?" Liz sneered. "Why would I want to spare you that?"

"Protection," Tess said simply.

"You think we should have _wanted_ to protect you?" Liz asked skeptically.

"No," Tess answered. "I think you should have thought about protecting yourselves." She folded her arms over her chest and said pointedly, "You turned me over to the army and I ended up in the white room. How could you all have just _assumed_ that I wouldn't turn you in, too?" She smiled malevolently, "I mean… really. The things I knew about all of you, the things I could tell the army or the FBI… You said I was evil, you said I was a traitor, you said I couldn't be trusted… and you sent me to the enemy. _Alive_. How idiotic can you get?"

Liz opened her mouth to defend herself and her friends… and then found that she had nothing to say. How had they never considered that? Why had they all just assumed that Tess wouldn't betray them to their human enemies when she had already killed Alex and betrayed them to Kivar?

They'd argued about the moral repercussions during their brief debate over what to do about Tess all those years ago, but they had never once argued over the practical repercussions. Tess could have betrayed them very, very easily, and they hadn't taken that into account.

Even more baffling than their apparently inability to think through these particular consequences was the fact that Tess hadn't betrayed them. Not to the army, at least. In all the years that she had been in the white room, she had clearly never once told her captors anything pertinent about any of them. Otherwise they would have been found much more quickly and killed much more easily.

Liz blinked and looked away.

"You have to hate me," Tess said softly. "It's what Michael doesn't understand. You need to hate me because Max is dead and your entire life has been ripped apart and you are absolutely terrified – for yourself and for Michael – this hatred is what is keeping you sane." She ran her fingers lightly up and down her arm and studied Liz as she spoke. "I know what that's like. In the white room, when my blood would spill out on the floor and my skin was covered in burns… when I'd scream and scream and scream until my throat was raw and nearly torn to shreds… when I was in pain… in agony… and nothing was coming. No help, no aid, no rescue… I was facing an eternity of this until I died and there was nothing I could do to stop it… hating you was the one thing that kept me sane. It was the one emotion that still burned brightly even when the rest of me was numb. It was the one memory that remained lodged in my mind even when everything else faded. They tried to take away everything. My name, my mind, my identity… and they _did_ take so much of it, but they couldn't take _that_. They could never take away how much I hated you."

"Why didn't you turn on us?" Liz whispered.

Tess smiled bitterly. "For the same reason you won't kill me. If I turned on you, you'd be dead. And then there wouldn't be anyone left to hate. And I'd lose it. I'd go crazy." Her bitter smile turned into a smirk, and her eyes danced with mocking bemusement. "I couldn't lose that, just like you can't lose your hatred of me now. It terrifies you that Michael wants to help me because if you give up your hatred, then you will have lost control of the one thing that is still yours. Max is dead… and so are the others. Your life is in shambles, and even worse, you've started developing feelings for your best friend's boyfriend, your deceased husband's brother. It's a betrayal to them – to Max and Maria – for you to feel this way. And it is a betrayal to Isabel and Kyle for you to be living your life, moving on, while they're dead. You know that, and you _still_ can't stop the feelings." She waited until Liz was looking at her again with wide and horrified eyes before continuing, "And you know as well as I do that the FBI is still out there, and maybe you can hide and maybe you can run, but will you really be safe forever? You don't know. You _can't_ know. Just like you can't truly ease Michael's nightmares or his guilt. Just like you can't make things better for Jim now that Kyle is dead. You can't see the future and you certainly can't control it. Your hatred of me is the one thing that you can still cling to in this mess of your life and you won't kill me because you can't afford to lose that."

"You're gloating," Liz said breathlessly. She wanted to deny Tess' words, but she couldn't. Tess was right. She didn't like the fact that Michael could seemingly ignore everything Tess had taken from them. But he had been right. While her inability to just overlook Alex's death was perfectly valid, while Tess had betrayed them all, turning her over to the army to be experimented on had been ethically wrong. Even if it had seemed necessary at the time, even if it had saved their lives…

It had been wrong.

But Liz couldn't stop hating Tess.

Max was dead. Maria was dead. And she was in love with Michael.

Kyle and Isabel had been murdered as well, their broken, bloody bodies now nothing more than lifeless corpses. They were gone, and they were never coming back. The future was filled with danger, the past was filled with pain, and the present was a complete mess. And she was no longer that naïve girl who believed that everything could work out. She had experienced far too much disaster to believe something like that.

But the hatred burning in her chest was an emotion that she understood, and it kept her rational and logical mind in control.

She shook her head silently.

"Of course I'm gloating," Tess said. "How could I not gloat over something as amusing as this? You and I are exactly alike now, Liz. Two peas in the proverbial hell-bound pod."


	10. And the Ground Caved In

Chapter Ten: And the Ground Caved In

_There was nothing in sight, but memories left abandoned  
>There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow<br>And the ground caved in between where we were standing  
>And your voice was all I heard<br>That I get what I deserve_

_- Linkin Park, New Divide_

_The sky was a dismal gray. Storm clouds drifted on a cool breeze, threatening rain. Everything was somber._

_It was as though the world had known what was going to happen._

_The attack came without warning. Michael had his arm draped lazily over Maria's shoulder, and the two of them were watching in amused silence as Kyle and Liz squabbled over something. Max stood at Liz's side, his arms crossed over his chest, his lips curled into a smirk as he listened to his wife bicker._

_Only Isabel stood apart from the others, glancing around with a puzzled expression on her face._

_Life had brought them here. They'd diverged after graduation, each going their own way, but the skins and the FBI were still a threat, and they'd come together again to continue the never-ending plotting against their enemies. They'd left people behind along the way – Jim Valenti and Jesse Ramirez, primarily, but even the Evans and Parkers and Amy DeLuca had heard little from them._

_They were fighting a war, but there weren't all-out battles. There was just the occasional enemy following them, the quiet suspicions they had about people who passed fleetingly through their lives._

_And in a single second, everything changed._

"_Michael, look out!"_

_Something hit him, hard. He stumbled forward and the sidewalk rushed up to meet him, slamming into his chest and taking his breath away. He twisted, looked up to see Max standing above him for just a single split-second, and then the world exploded into a cacophony of sound and color._

_The building behind them exploded outwards. A flash of white light illuminated the shards of brick and stone that tore free from the building's walls as it crumbled. The air was hot, and crackled with electricity and energy._

_There was a burst of yellow and orange, and the sudden reverberation of noise and power, and then Max was falling… "No!"_

_He didn't have to see Max to know what had happened. Isabel's anguished cry was answer enough, but he turned to look at Max anyway. Turned to see his friend – his brother – lying on the pavement, his body broken and bloody._

_Lifeless._

_The irony of it all hit him without mercy – the healer was the first to die._

_Someone grabbed him, pulled him to his feet. He twisted sharply and saw Kyle's face near his own. There was blood on his forehead and cheek, and his eyes were clouded with pain._

"_Get up," Kyle hissed. "Get up, get up…"_

_Maria was already puling Liz away. Liz was doing nothing, just staring at Max with a look of utter confusion on her features. She extended one hand towards him, then cried out in an almost hysterical voice, "We can't leave him!"_

_People were staring at them, at the ruins of the building and Max lying on the sidewalk and the smoke that curled into the air, but Michael wasn't paying attention to any of that. He was looking at Liz, watching as Maria whispered something to her, watching as Liz's entire face just crumpled._

"_No!" Liz screamed. "No, he's not dead, he's not gone, he's not…"_

_The sharp crack of gunfire filled the air._

"_Maria!" Michael screamed. She turned, but too late, and his cry of warning, of protest against the inevitable, did not stop the bullets. Neither did his sudden movement towards him, his attempt to unleash his powers in time. White-hot energy exploded from his outstretched hand but the red still spread across her chest, across her clothing. Her eyes met his, a painful smile fixed to her features even as tears drenched her cheeks._

_She fell first to her knees, and then to her back._

"_No… no… no, please… no," Michael whispered. His words – a prayer or a plea – did nothing, though. By the time he reached her body and dropped to his knees at her side, it was too late. Nothing could be done._

_She was gone._

"_Maria…"_

_He was dimly aware of people screaming. Innocent bystanders, humans who had no idea what was happening, or why, were running in terror from the scene. But the men dressed all in black were not running away. They were moving forward, their faces filled with grim determination, their guns held out in front of them._

_Michael felt numb. The grief hadn't hit him yet. But Maria's eyes stared unseeingly at the cloudy sky, and the first emotion that made its way through his frozen heart was anger._

_Pure, unadulterated fury._

_It coursed through him, making his blood boil in his veins. He had no tears to cry – not yet, anyway, but they would come later. He felt hollow, empty… except for the anger. He surged to his feet, turning as he did so to face the men who had murdered – _murdered_ – Maria, and extended both hands. He felt the power rush from his palms and watched as several of the men flew backwards._

_The blaring of car alarms mixed with screams in the air, and then the rapid fire of gunshots. Michael swung his arm in front of him, trying to push the bullets away, but he didn't have Max's powers. He couldn't conjure a shield or a force-field, couldn't block out the impending doom._

"_Michael! Liz! Move! Run!"_

_He heard Isabel's voice, and then felt Liz grab his arm and drag him away from Maria. They stumbled backwards, tripping over the rubble on the sidewalk and taking refuge behind a row of parked cars. There was an alley up ahead, and Liz was already looking at it with a calculating expression, clearly determined to figure out a way to get them there safely._

_Behind the calculation, he saw the pain. The grief. The unbearable agony at what had just happened._

_It hit him, then, taking his breath away and nearly forcing him back down to his knees._

_Maria and Max were dead._

_There was another burst of gunfire, and Michael looked over his shoulder in time to see Kyle fall to his hands and knees. The human boy landed on the cement sidewalk with a heavy thud, unable to stand up under the onslaught of the attack. Words bubbled in Michael's throat – a strong desire to call out, to demand that Kyle get up and keep fighting._

_But what could be done?_

_Kyle's blood spread across the ground and his eyes glazed over as his arms gaze out beneath him. He fell, and Liz took a few short steps back towards him as though she could save him._

_Too late._

_Michael grabbed her arm to stop her. "We need…" he started and then the words choked off as his gaze landed first on Maria's lifeless form and then on Max's broken body. Then he looked back at Kyle and shook his head, unable to think of the right words, unable to form coherent sentences._

_Isabel was at his side, and Liz suddenly said, "The alley," and jerked her head towards their only means of escape._

"_Go," Michael said, "I'll hold them off."_

_Isabel turned a tear-stained face towards him. There were cracks in her normally calm façade, and he could see her mask was dangerous close to crumbling. But her jaw was set with determination as she said firmly, "I'm not leaving without you."_

"_None of us will leave at all if we don't go now!" Michael snarled. Hysteria was rising in his chest, threatening to escape. He couldn't lose control, not now. He was clinging to sanity by a thread, but he absolutely could not allow himself to let go._

_Isabel opened her mouth to say something, and then froze. Her eyes widened with shock and Liz screamed, and Michael wasn't aware of what had happened until he felt Isabel's blood splatter against his face. Then he saw the bullet wound in her chest and realized then she had been shot in the back._

_He looked past her at the man in black approaching them, and didn't hesitate to unleash all the energy and rage he could, and the man was knocked off his feet in a flash of brilliant white._

_Isabel lay on the ground. Her shirt was stained with red and her eyes looked up at Michael and he wanted so desperately to say he was sorry. Her eyes never left his face, not even once, and she reached out her hand tentatively. He knelt down and took her hand in his, wrapping his fingers around hers, and held her gaze until she was gone._

_It felt like forever, but he knew it was only a few seconds. She'd been shot in the chest, and those kinds of wounds killed quickly._

_Liz was standing over him, aghast. He felt sick. A sweaty, hot nausea welled in his stomach and he fought back the urge to hurl._

_Then he pulled himself to his feet. "Go," he said firmly, nodding towards the alley. "Go! I'm right behind you."_

_Liz nodded once, then turned and ran. Michael followed, turning twice to wave his hand and cause whatever he could to explode. There was little he could do to protect either of them against gunshots, but if he could confuse and disorganize their enemies long enough, he could get Liz to safety, and then…_

_And then what? What could he do? How could he fix this? How could he make it better?_

_Liz reached the alley and darted into the shadows. He was about to follow her when something hit him heavily in the back and he lurched forward, lost his balance, and crumpled to the ground. He saw Liz turn around, but she was already far ahead of him, practically out of sight of their attackers. She took a few steps back towards him, but he dragged himself to his hands and knees and screamed, "Go!"_

_She faltered, clearly torn, and he tried to get up, tried to show that he was following her, that he would be fine._

_But he couldn't. Something hit him on the back of the head and stars burst in front of his eyes. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out in pain and tasted blood in his mouth. Something or someone kicked him in the side and he rolled over, curling into a fetal position. His brain wouldn't function properly, he couldn't think through the haze of pain and grief._

_They had fought this battle for years, and they had survived it for so long that he'd actually allowed himself to believe that they could be safe. They could be happy._

_They could win._

_And then, in just a few minutes, his entire life had been destroyed._

_A face appeared above him, and the last thing he saw before everything went black was a pair of green eyes staring down at him in triumph._

Michael started awake. His sheets were tangled around his body and drenched with sweat, his heart was racing rapidly, and his breath came in short gasps. He blinked, bleary-eyed and confused. For a single horrible moment, he thought he was back in the white room, but then his brain kicked in and he let out a breath of relief.

He was in his own bed, in the apartment he shared with Liz.

But Liz wasn't there. Normally, she was the one to wake him from any nightmare. Normally, when he found himself jolting from his dreams back into reality, her face was the first thing he would see and she leaned over him and assured him that he was safe.

She wasn't here this time.

He frowned and glanced towards the door. He must not have been screaming. It was his cries that had always attracted her attention in the past, and he refused to believe that she would ignore them now, even if she was angry with him. But if he hadn't been screaming, then she would have no way of knowing what had haunted his sleep.

He pushed the sheets and blankets away from him, forcefully ripping the ones that were tangled tightly around his limbs. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sank his head to his knees, trying his best to stop the nausea that was currently causing turmoil in his stomach.

It was the first time he'd relieved that particular nightmare all the way through. Since the white room, most of his dreams had focused on what had happened there, or on Tess, and they had only occasionally been interrupted by snippets of the attack.

But it wasn't any kind of relief or comfort that he didn't dream about the attack at night because it still haunted his memories during the day. He didn't need to be dreaming to remember in vivid detail just what it had felt like to have Isabel's warm blood spray onto his face.

He stumbled into the hallway and fumbled through the dark to the living room.

It had been two days since Liz had seen Tess at the Wal-Mart, and although Liz still hadn't told him any of what had transpired, Michael knew the conversation had upset her. He wanted to make it better, wanted to fix whatever was wrong, but he couldn't do anything to help if Liz wouldn't talk to him.

Of course, even if Liz did tell him what had happened, he doubted he'd be able to help. He couldn't fix his own problems, how could he expect to fix hers?

He glanced around the living room, then sighed and sank onto the sofa. He scratched at his eyebrow absently.

It was a miracle Liz had survived the attack at all. The others had fallen and Michael had ended up in the white room, but Liz had escaped, and he knew that her escape was the only thing that had saved him. If she had died, he would still be in the white room. And the man with the green eyes would have likely turned him into a monster by now.

Part of Michael knew – intellectually, at least – that they could not have seen what would happen. Even Liz with her premonitions hadn't been able to predict the attack. And when it had happened, it had come so quickly, and with such brutal force. And in broad daylight, on a crowded street…it was so unexpected.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall forward into his hands.

The other part of him couldn't let go of that sinking suspicion that they _should_ have been able to save themselves. They had known that the FBI was after them, as were the skins, but the attacks had been so few and far between that they had somehow lulled themselves into thinking they were safe.

If they had been faster, smarter, stronger…

He had spent all his formative years with one foot out the metaphorical door. While Max and Isabel made lives for themselves in Roswell, he was always on guard, always ready to drop everything and run. How had he forgotten that? How had he let himself believe that he could be safe?

But he knew the answer to that. He'd known the answer to that since the day he'd stood in the Granolith chamber and told the other three hybrids that he wanted to stay behind, that he'd finally found his home and it was with Maria.

And now Maria was gone.

He glanced towards the hallway and sighed. Maria was gone, and Liz was here and…

And he was fairly certain he was in love with Liz.

But she wasn't talking to him, not really. And he was barely talking to her. Whatever tentative peace they might have found after the attack and his experiences in the white room was ruined by the sudden appearance of Tess.

He grimaced. When he thought about it that way, he found he fully understood Liz's desire to seek revenge against the hybrid Queen.

But he couldn't. Hating Tess was slowly destroying him. Trying to help her wasn't really making himself feel any better, but he had to do something. He had to find a way to end this, and soon.

He doubted he and Liz could take much more of it.

* * *

><p>Michael had never asked about what had happened after the attack.<p>

Liz was partially thankful for that, because she hadn't wanted to talk about it any more than he'd wanted to talk about his time in the white room. But they'd been attacked in broad daylight, and they'd used their abilities in front of witnesses, and there was no way to undo any of that.

She was lying in her bed, staring blankly upwards, watching the shadows make their way back and forth across the white-washed ceiling.

There had been that frantic and excruciatingly painful call to Jim Valenti to tell him that Kyle was dead and to ask for help saving Michael. There had been the phone call to Diane and Philip Evans as well, and the happiness in Diane's voice when she first answered the phone and heard that it was Liz had nearly driven the brunette into speechless agony.

Then there had been the phone call to Amy DeLuca…

She'd ruined all of their lives in just a matter of minutes.

Michael hadn't asked about that. He'd been caught up in his own nightmares, too troubled and too damaged by the events of the white room to ask her about those horrors. Once she had confirmed that she had already informed all the parents of what had happened…

Well, there hadn't been anything left to do at that point. There hadn't been anything they _could_ do.

She hadn't spoken to either of the Evans parents since that one fateful phone call. She was technically their daughter-in-law (but did she get to hold onto that title now that Max was dead?) and had been a part of their family. Things had changed, though. In the chaos of the past weeks…

Well, she'd almost forgotten about them.

Almost.

What would Max and Isabel say if they could see her now?

She sighed and rolled over onto her stomach. Tess' words kept reverberating around in her head. She wanted to deny them, wanted to scream to anyone who would listen that they weren't true. But there wasn't anyone to tell. There wasn't anyone to tell, because no one – not even Michael – knew what Tess had said to her.

She hadn't told him.

As though lying to him about it would help her lie to herself. But she was never good at that. It didn't matter how many secrets she kept from everyone else, didn't matter how many ways she could spin the truth so that it came out as something else, she had never been particularly good at lying to herself.

Not when it really mattered.

Not about something like this.

And so she couldn't pretend that Tess hadn't said those words. Couldn't pretend that the words hadn't cut her right through to the bone.

Couldn't pretend that there wasn't something truth in them.

Michael would never understand how much she needed him to hate Tess as much as she did. She knew it was wrong, knew it wasn't her. She was Liz, and she forgave people for their crimes – or, if forgiveness wasn't possible, than she at least stopped wanting to cause them unbearable pain.

She was supposed to be able to get over things. The FBI. The skins. Max's stupidity while searching for his son. Philip Evans' distrust and her own father's attempts to control her life.

But Alex…

Alex was different. She couldn't get over this. She'd never been able to get over it. That hatred of Tess had always been there, festering in the back of her mind. That rage and that hurt that lived inside of her… Whatever had happened to Tess after she returned to Earth didn't change anything. They couldn't just pretend that Alex was still alive, that she hadn't killed him then tried to sell out her own family to their enemies.

She felt bad for what had happened to Tess – to an extent. But not enough. Not enough to be able to forgive.

Not enough to let go of the anger that had kept her sane. Because hating Tess with every fiber of her being had been one of the few things that had kept Liz from falling over the edge and plummeting into an abyss from which she wouldn't be able to escape.

Max had thought she'd gone crazy with grief after Alex had died. He didn't understand that the hatred she felt – in the beginning for the unnamed enemy she was sure had murdered her friend, and then later for Tess once they had discovered the truth – was actually her way of avoiding the craziness. She might have been reckless more than once, and she might have lashed out, said things she didn't mean…

But she hadn't gone crazy.

And Michael wanted to take that all away.

She sat up finally and rubbed her eyes. Light was creeping in through the window. Dawn was breaking. Michael would be up soon for work, and if she wanted even a few seconds to be alone in the kitchen, away from the awkward silence that had fallen over the two of them, she needed to go now.

She slid out of bed and padded softly to her door. The light in the hallway was on, and she blinked in surprise. The door to Michael's bedroom was still firmly shut, but she saw Michael in the living room, lying on the sofa. He was asleep. His limbs were sprawled at odd angles and his hair was mused and ruffled.

He looked peaceful.

She stood there for a moment, staring at him, then let out a long, slow breath. He clearly must have awoken in the middle of the night and come out here, possibly escaping some nightmare, but she didn't remember hearing him. She hadn't woken up to his screams, hadn't rushed into his bedroom, hadn't shaken him forcefully from his dreams then sat by his side as he tried to regain his hold on reality.

Her stomach twisted with a painful mix of guilt and loss.

Did this mean he didn't need her anymore?

She tiptoed around him and into the small kitchen. Her hand brushed against the wall of the apartment and the world tilted on its axis as she was thrown headlong into a premonition that took her breath away. She stumbled, letting out an involuntary cry as a wave of overwhelming fear washed over her, and slammed her eyes shut tightly, as though the action would somehow block out the mental images.

She gasped, and sank to her knees.

A moment later, she felt a hand come to rest on her arm, and another on her opposite shoulder and then Michael's voice drifted to as if it was coming from far away.

"Liz? Liz? Parker, can you hear me?"

Liz forced her eyes open. Michael was crouched in front of her, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face, and his eyes were wide with worry. He was holding her, and she found herself thinking vaguely that it was an unexpected role-reversal.

Just moments ago, hadn't she been the one thinking about all the times she'd woken him from nightmares?

Only his nightmares were of the past, and hers were of the future.

She looked around the apartment as though needing to take in every familiar detail. She tried to ignore the part of her brain that said she was only doing this to avoid meeting Michael's gaze. His hand on her arm was already causing complicated emotions to coalesce in her stomach, and she had no idea what actually staring at him would do.

"You had a premonition," Michael said.

It wasn't a question, but Liz nodded anyway.

"What was it?" Michael pressed. "What did you see?"

"Men," she whispered. "Dressed in black, carrying guns on their belts. They were here… in our apartment."


	11. So All Alone

A/N: This chapter is a bit on the shorter side, but is still very important as it will get us one step closer to our resolution. Sort of.

Chapter Eleven: So All Alone

_I'm just wondering why I feel so all alone,  
>Why I'm a stranger in my own life.<em>

_-Sheryl Crow, Every Day is a Winding Road_

Just a little while ago, they would have run and not looked back. Before Tess had come to Montana, Liz's words would have provoked an automatic response that she and Michael knew by heart. It had happened once or twice while the others were still alive. Not frequently enough for it to become habit, but that didn't mean that they didn't have a plan for these circumstances, one that had been repeatedly drilled into their skulls by and over-caffeinated Isabel.

Isabel had always been a fan of planning.

Just a little while ago, Liz would have known what to do. The premonition wasn't entirely unexpected – they knew the government would still be after them – but everything was still complicated.

Michael started and pulled away from her, mouth falling open. The expression of surprise lingered on his features for only a moment, then it was replaced by grim determination.

He rose, and pulled her to her feet as well. "Pack," he said simply, firmly. "I'm going to call the garage, tell them a family emergency came up and I need to be gone for a few days. At least that way people won't think anything is wrong… yet."

It was a small town. In small towns, people noticed when someone did something uncharacteristic. People had noticed when Michael and Liz arrived, and they had accepted it with the kindness and courtesy that was a trademark of the Midwest. But a sudden departure for no reason…?

That would start quite a few rumors they couldn't afford.

A family emergency would provide a decent explanation for a few days. By the time anyone realized that they weren't coming back, they'd be long gone.

And hopefully the government wouldn't have a trail to follow.

"How did they even find us?" Liz demanded as she moved automatically towards her room. Michael was pulling out his cell phone – they'd have to dump those, too, and get new ones – but he paused and gave her a half-shrug.

"We knew they would be looking," he said quietly.

He didn't say anything else, so she left him standing in the living room and walked into her bedroom. The suitcase was under the bed, half-filled with essentials. All she had to do was stuff some more clothing into it, and anything she had in her desk that could be sensitive or traceable, and she'd be ready to go.

She looked down at her journal. It was still sitting on her desk, unused. It lay on top of receipts and scraps of paper and newspaper clippings and some of the information she had used when planning Michael's rescue from the white room. Those would all have to be taken with her or destroyed, but the journal…

She picked it up and dropped it in her suitcase more out of habit than anything else. She doubted she'd be writing in it again.

She heard Michael moving around in his bedroom next to hers. His footsteps were loud and angry, and echoed with the same frustration that she felt. They had just settled in, they had just built a life for themselves, and it was being pulled out from underneath their feet.

It wasn't fair.

It didn't take long to finish the task – that was the entire point of practicing, after all, so that they would be able to do it quickly and without hesitation if needed – and Liz emerged from her bedroom a moment later to find Michael dragging his own suitcase into the hallway as well.

He glanced at her. "Did you destroy everything you couldn't take with you?" he asked, scratching at his eyebrow with his free hand.

Liz nodded mutely. It hadn't taken much, just a wave of her hand, and everything of importance was ruined beyond recognition. "You?" she asked.

Not, of course, that there was really any need for the two of them to check in with each other about this particular detail. They knew what to do, and neither was likely to forget the importance of destroying everything that was left behind. They could not take the chance that the government would use it to find them.

Michael nodded distractedly and glanced towards the window. Although it was incredibly unlikely that the men Liz had seen in her premonition were going to come bursting through the door any moment, Liz could tell that he was worried that they may be running out of time.

Sometimes her premonitions told her exactly when something would happen, but most of the time they did not.

"Come on," Michael said, and they walked towards the door of the apartment.

The task should have been easy. It should have simple and straightforward, and even if there was bitterness and resentment, even if there was annoyance, even if they both hated that they were forced to do this again…

It should have been uncomplicated.

It wasn't.

Because Michael paused at the door and, turning towards Liz, said, "We need to warn Tess."

* * *

><p>Michael swallowed back his uneasiness as he scrawled a brief note on a piece of paper and left it on the coffee table in the center of the apartment. That look in Liz's eyes, the utter disbelief and implied accusation of betrayal, had cut through his defenses. Her mouth had opened but no sound had come out, and that was even worse. If she'd yelled or screamed or even just argued with him…<p>

But she'd given a resigned sigh and turned away.

He knew it was a stupid idea. They had no clue how to find Tess now that she had moved out of her old apartment. It was far too dangerous to stay in the town and look for her, or to wait around for her to find them. Not with the government there, searching for them.

Liz was waiting for him in the car, and he knew she hated this plan. It was dangerous to leave a note, to leave anything. They were running from the government, and they knew all too well just how good the government was at putting together bits and pieces of information in order to find them. They'd done it before, after all, and Maria, Max, Isabel, and Kyle had paid the price.

They never left anything behind.

Until now.

When Tess realized that Michael and Liz weren't in town anymore she would come here for answers. And she would see the note on the coffee table and understand why they had left. Hopefully she would heed the warning and leave too.

Unless the government got here first. Unless they saw the note before Tess did.

It was a stupid, risky, possibly pointless plan, but he couldn't leave without warning Tess, and he didn't know what else to do. He was risking his life to save Tess. He was risking _Liz's_ life to save Tess.

And now Liz's expression of betrayal was burned into his mind.

He stared down at the note.

_The government is here. Run._

Of course, there was also the possibility that the government hadn't been looking for Michael and Liz at all. It was possible that they had been following Tess. It was possible that they'd already _found_ Tess.

In which case the warning would be too late.

And it would do more harm than good, because it would not only fail to help Tess, but it would also tell the government that Michael and Liz had known they were here and that was why they had left. It would give them more clues, more information…

Michael scratched at his eyebrow. He couldn't blame Liz for being upset.

He also couldn't leave without at least trying to warn Tess.

He hurried out of the apartment, closing the door firmly behind him. He paused for a moment at the stairs, taking a slow breath and forcing the tension out of his body as best he could. They'd be in the car for hours, maybe days. Awkward silences would only make this fleeing worse, and he didn't want that. Not for himself, and not for Liz.

He opened his eyes, drew another breath, then walked down the stairs.

He left the apartment – their home, at least for a short while – behind and didn't look back.

Liz already had the car running. He slid into the passenger seat and nodded briefly. She gave him a piercing look, then turned her attention back to the road before them and pressed her foot on the gas pedal. The car pulled away from the curb and into the street. Michael glanced out the window and watched the yellow dashed lines on the street pass by.

Tess had told Michael that she could find them anywhere. Would she follow them now?

"I called Jim," Liz said quietly. "As far as he knows, the government hasn't gone back to Roswell. He's going to check with Diane and Philip Evans, and with my parents, but…" She trailed off for a moment, chewing her lip, before completing the thought, "It doesn't look like they've bothered anyone there."

"Good," Michael said.

He hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about the parents who had been left behind. There wasn't really much of a point because he could never be a part of their lives. He was too dangerous and it was too much of a risk.

He'd already caused them enough pain by failing to protect their children. There was no reason to add to it.

Still, he was glad that Liz had checked in with Jim. He was glad that the people they had left behind in Roswell were safe.

He was glad he didn't have more deaths to add to the ones already weighing on his conscience.

* * *

><p>The first night they stayed in a motel by the side of the road, shared a single bed in a dingy room, and tried to pretend that they weren't both being slowly driven insane by the silence that existed between them.<p>

The second night they stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, and were mistaken for a couple by the kind old lady who owned the home. Liz didn't have the heart to correct her, and Michael couldn't bring himself to say much of anything at all. And they still didn't talk.

The third day they sat in the car and stared silently at the landscape all around them, both hoping the other had some idea of where they were going and what they would do now.

* * *

><p>Michael kept looking for Tess.<p>

He didn't admit to it – not that Liz actually asked him directly, but every time she asked why he was looking around constantly, he would dodge the question. There were many good and reasonable answers: he was looking for the government; he was looking for anyone who might recognize them; he was looking for Tess because he was afraid she would attack. But when he evaded the question, when he failed to give an answer Liz could accept, she knew the truth.

He was looking for Tess because he wanted to see her. He wanted to know that she hadn't been captured, that she wasn't back in the white room.

He wanted to know that she was _okay_.

He had risked their lives, their safety, for a traitor and a murderer and it _still_ wasn't enough for him.

By the end of the third day, something deep inside her was cracking. Breaking. Fracturing into a thousand little pieces and falling apart. The silence that stretched between them wasn't a truce. The temporary pause in their arguments wasn't a sign of agreement. If anything, it only proved that they were drifting further and further apart.

And she had no idea how to bridge the gap between them.

She didn't know where they were going. Of course, Michael didn't, either, but that was little comfort. The not knowing made her feel helpless, and being helpless made her frustrated. Irritated. Short-tempered.

The sun was setting over the horizon, and she knew they would need to find a place to stop soon. A place to spend the night before they continued their journey. Before they continued to run.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. They were traveling southeast, away from Montana and from everything that they might have once fooled themselves into believing they could call home.

How could she have really allowed herself to believe that? How could she have ever thought that they could escape the government forever?

Or had she simply assumed that it would all work out now that she had rescued Michael from the white room? Had she believed that together they were invincible?

Had she really been that stupid?

Her mind wandered to Max.

_I've made so many mistakes, Liz. I've been wrong about so many things. But not this. Not you. I love you, I will always love you. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know when this war will end – if it will end. I don't know if we will ever be safe. But none of that scares me anymore. I can handle the uncertainty and I can handle the fear, just as long as you are by my side._

She sighed. Max had been true to his word. Since that day, since those words, he had faced everything without flinching, without backing down, and without fear.

Right up until the government killed him.

She opened her eyes and glanced over at Michael. He was running a hand through his hair, his eyes fixed on the road, but he must of caught sight of her gaze through his peripheral vision because he glanced over at her for a moment.

There was a questioning look in his eyes, then he cleared his throat and asked casually, "What's up?"

She opened her mouth to answer, unsure exactly what it was she wanted to say, and the words that came out surprised even her.

"I was thinking that maybe we should split up."


	12. The Other Side of Despair

Chapter Twelve: The Other Side of Despair

_Life begins on the other side of despair._

_- Jean-Paul Sarte_

He wasn't sure what upset him more: that she had said the words at all, or that she had done it without anything resembling doubt.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road and stared at her in disbelief. That disbelief quickly gave way to anger, but the determined expression on her own face didn't waver. He clenched his hands tightly around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white at the pressure.

If it had been Maria sitting across from him, he would have assumed this was some sort of test. He needed to figure out the answer she wanted to hear, and then say it, or else fail the test and be forced to endure her spite for the next several hours.

But it wasn't Maria. It was Liz, and Liz had never played those sorts of games.

She wasn't testing him.

She actually wanted to split up.

He let out a breath and did his best to remain calm as he replied, "Fine. If you think that is for the best."

The irony of this, of course, was that growing up, Michael was the one who always assumed that they would have to split up one day. In fact, he'd tried more than once to leave Roswell on his own.

He'd always come back, though. First because of Isabel and Max, then later because of Maria.

And now Liz was the one who wanted them to go their separate ways, and he was the one trying to figure out how everything had fallen apart so very, very quickly.

Liz looked away from him, her eyes fixing on the road ahead. "It will be harder for them to find both of us if we're not together," she said softly.

"It will be harder for us to defend ourselves if we're not together," Michael countered. "Safety in numbers and all that."

That comment brought a bitter laugh to Liz's lips, and then she said, "We were all together when they killed Max, Maria, Isabel, and Kyle. It didn't help us then, and I doubt it will help us now."

Michael slammed one hand down against the steering wheel and said, "Is this really about staying safe or are you just that desperate to get away from me?" He was surprised by the acidic vitriol in his words, and surprised too by how much satisfaction he got out of saying them.

Liz snapped her head towards him, fury simmering in her gaze. "What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded, bristling at the accusation in his question.

"Well, it has been remarkably clear for the last few days that you don't want anything to do with me," Michael answered. "This seems like a good way of getting away from me without having to feel guilty for abandoning me. It's for a _noble_ cause, after all. Our survival."

He hated the vulnerability that crept into his voice, hated that even after all these years, he still had that little boy inside of him who used to linger outside the Evans house, peering longingly through the windows at the family inside. He'd thought he'd outgrown that need to belong somewhere, thought he'd outgrown the bitter resentment that used to bubble in his chest when he saw how good and kind and loving Diane and Philip Evans were to their children.

Liz yanked off her seatbelt and shoved her car door open. Without sparing Michael a single look, she scrambled from the car and started pacing angrily away from the road.

They were on a highway in the middle of nowhere. Fields stretched out on either side of the road, and Liz didn't stop walking until she was knee-deep in overgrown grass.

Michael stared at her back for a long moment, then pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. Liz had never been the type to run away from an argument in the past, but a lot of things had changed since the attack, and sometimes he didn't recognize her anymore.

Sometimes he didn't recognize himself.

He climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut behind. Liz turned at the sound, and their eyes met across the distance between them.

She was near tears.

She took a few steps towards him, then stopped. "I came after you," she said hoarsely. "I never stopped looking for you after the attack, and when I found you, I launched an assault against a _government compound_. I risked my life – my safety, my sanity – to rescue you. I put _everything_ on the line for you, and then I spent weeks after that waking you up from nightmares and sitting by your side when you couldn't sleep. So don't you _dare_ accuse me of abandoning you."

Michael nodded, accepting the truth in those words. They had been closer in those few weeks than he had been to anyone in a while. Even Maria.

But that had changed. Everything had changed.

"So then it all comes down to Tess," he said flatly. "We disagree on her, and that disagreement can't be overcome?"

"I don't see you putting in much effort to respect my point of view," Liz snapped.

"I can't! I don't agree with it," Michael shot back angrily. How could she expect him to let go of something that mattered so much to him? How could she expect him to turn his back on his morals?

"And I don't agree with what you are doing," Liz replied coldly. "You're not the only one hurting here, so don't make me out to be the bad guy in this."

"You accused me of not caring about Alex!" Michael snarled in response. "You accused me of not caring that Tess had murdered him, had betrayed all of us."

Liz wiped at her eyes with one hand, angrily brushing aside a few tears that had escaped and were now falling down her cheeks. But she lifted her chin defiantly and answered, "It feels that way to me."

"Killing Tess isn't going to bring Alex back," Michael said.

"I know that!"

"Do you?"

"Don't patronize me, Michael," Liz replied angrily. "I'm not a child." She folded her arms over her chest. "And we're not even talking about killing Tess. You don't just want to let her live, let her wander through our lives unchecked. You want to _protect_ her. You've spent the last three days hoping that she'll turn up so you can know that she is safe. Never mind the fact that she's trying to ruin our lives." She stopped, let out a breath, then said in a quieter voice, "Never mind the fact that she's _succeeding_."

"I can't let her go back to the white room," Michael said, inwardly cursing the fact that Liz had noticed his search for Tess. He supposed it really shouldn't have surprised him, though. The two of them had been alone in a car for three days, and Liz was perceptive enough to note his distraction and understand what it meant.

Liz always noticed. She was still far too much of a scientist at heart to miss the clues.

He rubbed his eyes, feeling suddenly so very tired. "It will… it could destroy us. Me. If she goes back…"

"She's not going to betray us to them," Liz said with a frown.

Michael gazed at her, surprised. That thought hadn't even occurred to him, but now that Liz had mentioned it, it seemed like a real concern. Tess was apparently connected to them in such a way that she could find them anywhere they went, and that meant she could lead the government to them…

He pressed his lips into a thin line and studied the brunette. How exactly did she know that Tess wouldn't betray them? She'd spent days reminding him that Tess was the enemy, so why would she trust the blonde now?

Or did it even matter?

He shook his head wearily. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what are you so afraid of?"

Michael blinked. What was he so afraid of?

Unbidden, the image of green eyes floated into his vision. But the eyes were not malicious, not callous, not triumphant.

They were lifeless.

"I know what they do to people in the white room," Michael said. He leaned back against the hood of the car. "I know what they did to her. I can't… I won't… I won't let that happen. Not again."

"But you're willing to risk it happening to us in order to protect her?" Liz questioned incredulously. "How does that make sense?"

"I have morals, Liz," Michael said.

Liz's eyes widened, and then she said icily, "And I don't? Is that what you're saying?"

Michael grimaced. It hadn't been what he'd meant to imply, though he had no idea how to take it back now. He knew Liz had morals and he knew Liz cared. She was one of the best people he had ever met. But her inability to understand why he wanted to help Tess was grating on his patience, and he said without thinking, "You're not acting like it."

Liz's jaw dropped. She'd clearly expected him to deny it, to apologize or take it back or make some sort of attempt to pretend that he hadn't meant what he'd said.

It was too late now.

"You _bastard_," she snarled. "You have no idea what you're talking about. _None_."

"God, Parker, even _Tess_ didn't turn us in to the white room," Michael spat in reply.

"I'm not saying we should hand Tess over to the government again," Liz protested, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm just saying that we should stop treating her like she's the victim."

"She is the victim!"

"She's the _enemy_! She killed Alex. Stop acting like anything that has happened to her since then makes what she did okay."

Michael stiffened with anger. "I am not trying to excuse what she did," he hissed, flushing darkly. He'd thought they'd already discussed this, already moved past it. He thought she understood that this wasn't about forgetting the past, that killing Alex was never going to be forgivable. He thought she no longer believed that he didn't care about Alex's death.

Apparently, neither of them had moved past anything.

"And you wonder why I think splitting up is a good idea," Liz practically growled.

"So that's it? You're just going to give up?" Michael scoffed.

"I can't do this, Michael, Liz retorted, her voice colored by frustration and helplessness. "I can't keep going through the silence and the arguments. I can barely manage to keep myself sane without this tension. And now… I can't… I just _can't_."

"We're both trying to stay sane," Michael said unemotionally, uncaringly. "You're not the only one who is losing it."

Liz flinched.

"But making sure Tess doesn't end up in the white room… that is what _I _need to do to stay sane," Michael stated. "Even if it means risking my own safety." He hesitated, and didn't finish the thought, didn't go on to say that he had to do it even if meant compromising Liz's safety, too.

He doubted he needed to say that bit aloud, anyway.

Liz already knew.

"Why?" she demanded.

"Because it is the _only_ thing I have left!" Michael answered, raising his voice as his temper flared.

"_What_?"

"Do you know what Tess said to me while we were in the white room?" Michael asked, his words still loud and angry and vicious. "She said the government would turn me into an animal. We were arguing an I attacked her and when I saw the fear in her eyes I felt… I felt _triumph_. I felt vindictive pleasure. And she saw that, and she said that they would… they would turn me into an animal. Just like they'd done to her."

Liz had lifted one hand to her mouth and her eyes were wide with shock and pain, although he wasn't sure if the pain was for herself, for himself, or for Tess.

"And I told Tess that that would never happen. That they would _never_ turn me into an animal. And she laughed in my face. Like she knew better. Like she knew it was _inevitable_."

"Michael…"

"And then I killed a man with my bare hands." He stopped, the words suddenly stuck in his throat. He tried to take a stumbling step backwards, but he was already pressed up against the car and there was nowhere to run. Not that running would do any good. He couldn't escape this memory, couldn't escape watching those green eyes widen in horrified realization before glossing over in death.

Liz didn't say anything. She just stared at him. Waiting.

"When you attacked the base, Tess and I were escaping and this man… he was the one who had experimented on me in the white room. He'd _tortured_ me there and he'd… he'd _enjoyed_ it. He tried to stop us from escaping, wanted to lock us up and I was so angry. It was like I wasn't even in control anymore. Something else had taken over. Pure rage, pure animalistic fury. He'd taken pleasure in what he'd done to us and I just… I _attacked_ him. I beat him, I strangled him. I _killed_ him!"

Liz still didn't say anything, and Michael lowered his gaze, his anger draining away. He was too tired to have this argument, too tired to defend himself against her words and her looks. But he'd started it, and now he had to see it through to the end.

Whatever that end may be.

"Maybe Tess was right," he said softly. "Maybe they can turn us into animals. They can certainly kill us. Torture us. Take away all the people we have ever cared about. It feels like I don't know what is right and what is wrong anymore. Maybe Tess was right about that, too, and all the people we've killed to protect ourselves makes us no better than her. I don't know. I don't have a particularly good grip on mortality at the moment but I will tell you what I do know."

He looked up at Liz again, his eyes cold and hard.

"I know that I've never tortured anyone. I know that I've never actually _enjoyed_ killing people. And I know that I still value life." He shook his head and said with a level of determination he didn't even realize he possessed. "The government may be able to destroy my life and all the people I care about, and they may be able to turn me into an animal, but they will _never_ be able to make me like them."

Liz was silent for a long moment and Michael couldn't bring himself to meet his gaze. He didn't know what she would say, didn't know how she would respond. He didn't want her pity, but more than that, he didn't want to be faced with her disgust.

Then she said bluntly, "You're wrong."

He looked up at her sharply, eyebrows raised.

"You think the only thing you have left is the knowledge that you will never become like them?" Liz shook her head, her expression a mixture of anger and disappointment. "You have _me_, Michael. I thought you knew that."

"Do I?" Michael asked.

"_Yes_!"

"Then tell me why you want to leave. Tell me why you can't stand the silence anymore." Michael hesitated, then figured he might as well take his chances and throw all his cards on the table. "Tell me why you're so determined to hate Tess, to want her to suffer. It's _wrong_."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" Liz asked, the words seeming to burst from her lips of their own accord.

Michael stared at her in stunned silence.

"Do you really think that I don't know that this isn't right? That no one deserves the white room? That we were wrong all those years ago? Do you really think I _want_ to feel like this?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" Michael asked.

"I look at Tess and I can't feel regret. I want to, but I just… I _don't_. And that terrifies me more than you could possibly imagine. Because all I can feel is hate. I don't have the energy for it, Michael, and I don't think I even have the heart. But it doesn't change anything, because it is still there and I can't make it go away."

Michael blinked a few times, trying to clear his thoughts and make sense of what she was saying. In all of their arguments and all of their strained silences, it had never once occurred to him that she might have doubts. He'd always assumed that she thought he was wrong.

What if she really believed that she was wrong?

What they had done to Tess was revenge, not justice, but that distinction didn't always matter. And Liz, the ever rational, ever logical, ever sensible one might know on an intellectual level that turning Tess over to the army hadn't been the right move, but she didn't _feel_ it.

"And you… you were so determined to help Tess, to protect her… And just three days ago you were willing to risk everything to save her and I… What was I supposed to think, Michael? You didn't tell my _why_. You didn't say that this was about not becoming like the FBI, not becoming our own enemies. You just said we needed to warn her and… If you're willing to risk everything for someone, what conclusion can I draw except that you care about that person? I know what I am feeling is wrong, but I couldn't understand how what you were feeling was _right_."

Michael sighed. "That's why you brought up me not caring about Alex again," he said softly. "Because you thought I cared about Tess more than him."

Liz nodded, but then said a bit bitterly, "You brought it up first."

Michael couldn't argue with that.

"I needed you to hate her as much as I did," Liz said finally. "I needed that, because if I couldn't stop hating her, then I at least needed to believe that hating her was the right thing to do, and I couldn't do that as long as you wanted to help her."

"Why didn't you just tell me all of this?" Michael asked pointedly.

Liz met his gaze and said unapologetically, "I don't know how to talk to you anymore, Michael."

"Because of all the silences?"

"No… before that, too… I didn't know how to… to bring it up, to tell you… Because when we talked…" Liz heaved a sigh and trailed off. Then she said in a barely audible tone, "It was always about you."

"Huh?" Michael asked ineloquently, feeling bewildered and a little bit defensive at that last statement.

"You were having nightmares, so we talked about that. You were haunted by what happened in the white room, so we tried to talk about other things. I tried to distract you with movies and jokes and… You started seeing Tess and thought you were going crazy, so we talked about that. Or didn't talk about it, if you stubbornly decided not to. Then you felt guilty, so we talked about that." Liz shrugged half-heartedly. "By the time we started talking about me and how I felt, things were already awkward… strained… and I didn't know how to bring it up. I didn't want to argue with you, but it just seemed like… like that was the only way we knew how to communicate at that point. Or maybe we just didn't know how to communicate at all."

Michael scrubbed at his face with one hand as another realization occurred to him, and this one left him filled with guilt and self-disgust.

"I never really asked you about what you went through while I was in the white room," he said.

She looked at him, shrugged again, looked away. "It didn't matter. You were falling apart and I wasn't. There was no reason to add to what you were dealing with. There was no reason to make it worse."

"I was in the white room for six weeks," Michael said, frowning. "The government must have still been after you. They saw you get away."

Liz sighed. "I hid. I plotted. I got you out of the white room. We survived. That was all that mattered." She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Nothing I went through compares to the white room. Nothing I went through comes even close to it."

Michael accepted this without comment. He'd been selfish – too distraught to see that he wasn't the only one in pain. He'd known that Liz was grieving, but they were both grieving, and it had never occurred to him that she might be dealing with more than just the pain of losing the people she loved.

Six weeks not knowing if he was alive or dead. Six weeks running, hiding, desperately trying to find a way to save him. Six weeks of shoving all of that grief and all of that pain into the back of her mind and letting it fester there because she had to focus on rescuing him. Six weeks of dealing with the fallout of being attack in broad daylight – with witnesses who saw them use their powers.

Six weeks of being alone.

Michael closed his eyes and steeled his resolve. He'd been selfish in the past, thinking mainly of himself and what he needed, and maybe it was time to remedy that. But not yet.

He had to do one more selfish thing first.

"Maybe you're right," he said quietly. "Maybe it would be better if we split up. Maybe there will be less a chance of anyone finding us – the government or Tess. Maybe you'll be happier without me… without the silences." He stared her straight in the eye. "But I don't want you to leave. Because I don't know how to do this – how to survive – without you."

Liz replied with a bitter chuckle, "What makes you think that is enough of a reason for me to stay?"

"Because you're Liz Parker," Michael replied, "and you've never let me down before."

Liz snorted. "Right," she muttered sarcastically.

"And I… really… care… about you," he said. _Love_ wasn't a word he could bring himself to use quite yet. It wasn't a word he had ever really been comfortable using, and now it reminded him too much of Maria and Max. Even though they were both dead, it still felt like a betrayal.

Liz tilted her head to the side. "I really care about you, too," she replied.

"I kind of figured that," Michael answered. "You wouldn't have stuck around otherwise." He considered his next words carefully before saying, "And you were right about Alex." She gave him a questioning look, and he elaborated, "We never cared about him as much as you did. Max and I… maybe Isabel did in the end, but he was your best friend for years and I think… I think we didn't really realize how much he mattered to all of us until he was gone. And maybe we never realized just how much he mattered to you even after he was gone."

"But you cared," Liz said. "I know that. I know that you… I shouldn't have accused you of not caring that Tess had killed Alex. But I can't… I can't stop hating her. I just _can't_."

"That's okay," Michael said.

But Liz shook her head vehemently. "It's not okay, Michael. It's going to drive me completely crazy. And I don't want that." She swallowed nervously, then added, "Tess told me that she never turned us in to the government because she couldn't let us be the victims. She had to hate us because after everything that happened in the white room, everything they did to her, that hate was the only thing keeping her sane. It was the only thing they couldn't take from her. And she said I needed the hatred, too. I had to hate her because it was the one thing left in my life that made sense. Everything else was gone, ripped away, and I… it was like I was drowning and hating her was my lifejacket. My floating device. And she was right. I needed it. Because it was the only thing I had left."

"You're wrong," Michael said flatly, echoing her words from earlier. "You have me."

She gave a tentative smile, then said seriously, "But Tess _is_ crazy. Maybe her hatred has kept her more sane than she would be without it, but she… I look at this Tess, I talk to this Tess… and I don't even recognize her anymore. She's become something dark, something twisted… If that is the price of sanity, I don't want it. I don't want to become someone I don't recognize."

He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to allay her fears. He couldn't tell her that she wouldn't go crazy. He couldn't tell her that she wouldn't fall apart. He couldn't tell her that anything would get better, or easier. He couldn't even tell her that this would one day end.

He knew better than to make promises he couldn't keep.

So he took a couple of tentative steps towards her, then wrapped her in a hug. "Do you remember what I told you the first time you saw Tess? When we were in the grocery store parking lot and you thought you were going crazy?"

"That we could go crazy together," Liz said, her voice muffled against his chest.

"I stand by that promise," Michael said. "We're in this together. And we'll figure out how to do it… how to live without the others… together."


	13. The Beauty That Still Remains

AN: Last chapter, folks...

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirteen: The Beauty That Still Remains<p>

_I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains._

_- Anne Frank_

Tess found them on the sixth day.

They pulled into a motel parking lot and she was already there, sitting on the curb near the entrance, staring at them. It made Liz wonder exactly what kind of connection Tess had to them. It also made her wonder what mode of transportation Tess was using, because as far as Liz knew, the blonde didn't own a car.

Neither of these thoughts were particularly important, though, so Liz shrugged them off and climbed out of the car after Michael.

Michael looked at Tess, and Liz said nothing when she saw the complete relief in his expression.

He gave her an apologetic look afterwards, but she just smiled and took his hand, squeezing it reassuringly. It still hurt her to see his reaction, and she had a feeling he knew that, but it didn't matter. She and Michael might never fully agree on Tess, but the disagreement wasn't worth the pain it had caused either of them.

Michael walked towards Tess, and she rose to her feet and faced them.

"Why?" she asked flatly.

Michael didn't pretend to misunderstand. "They're still the enemy. No one deserves the white room."

Tess shook her head, blonde curls bouncing. "That's not what you thought before," she accused. But there wasn't any heat in her words. In fact, her tone was more bewildered than anything else. Then her gaze flicked to Liz and she added coolly, "Neither of you thought that."

Liz stiffened.

Letting go of her anger was a lot simpler of a task when she wasn't faced with those blue eyes. It was hard to look at them and not wonder if they were the last thing Alex had seen before he died.

She lowered her gaze for a moment, and felt Michael squeeze her hand.

"Things change," Michael said. "People change." There was a pause, then he said sincerely, "I'm glad you escaped them."

If Tess had found them three days earlier, when Michael and Liz hadn't been talking and Liz had felt like nothing would ever fix whatever problems existed between them, Michael's comment would have sent her into a fit of rage. As it was, it still upset her.

She still didn't like the thought of Michael risking so much to protect a murderer and a traitor.

But since the argument on the side of the highway three days ago, things had been better between the two of them. Still awkward, maybe. They danced around certain topics, never quite discussing Liz's six weeks alone or Michael's actions against the green-eyed government agent. They were merely alluded to, before the pain caused by thinking about either became so great the conversation would quickly turn to something else.

But the silence was gone. The tension was gone.

And Michael was still holding Liz's hand.

Tess frowned, then said, "I almost didn't. They were already in town by the time I found the note." She looked away from Michael, towards the highway. "I destroyed it," she added. "The note, I mean. So they wouldn't find it. Wouldn't have any clues." She lifted a hand to her head and wove her fingers into her hair as her palm pressed against her temple. "Wouldn't find me."

"Thank you," Michael said.

Tess shook her head and answered with a laugh that was not quite sane. "I didn't do it for you." She continued to press her hand against her head as though trying to physically force thoughts from her mind.

When Alex had died, Liz had been too blinded by grief to see how much she was hurting the people around her. Her careless, callous words had been ill-timed at best and downright cruel at worst. But Max's refusal to listen to her, his continual attempts to try to control what she did and who she talked to, had caused their own fair share of hurt.

She'd been right in the end – Alex _had_ been killed by an alien – and nothing else had really mattered. After the revelations of Tess' actions and her true loyalties, they'd been too stricken to do much of anything but try – stumbling and blindly groping in the metaphorical dark – to find their way back to one another.

It hadn't always worked.

And though Liz knew she had to shoulder some of the blame for that, she still placed most of it on Tess.

Which meant that, in the intervening years, her memories of Tess had changed. She knew intellectually that Tess had actually helped them on more than one occasion and that she had had plenty of interactions with the blonde in which she did not want to kill her. But those memories were twisted now, and she could never think of Tess without imagining her as always conniving, always malicious. Every word Tess had ever uttered had been part of a greater plot to earn their trust and then betray them. Ever look she had ever tossed their way had been filled with calculating spite. Those blue eyes had always been icy and unemotional, never touched by anything resembling warmth.

The Tess standing before her was still a murderer and still a traitor, but underneath the anger and distrust in her gaze, her eyes… her eyes were haunted.

How had Liz never noticed that before?

"Let's go inside," Liz said to Michael. "I'm tired and wouldn't mind getting a good night's sleep before hitting the road again tomorrow."

Michael frowned. "I'm hungry," he said.

Liz rolled her eyes and laughed softly. "_Boys_," she murmured with a bemused shake of her head.

Michael looked back at Tess and it was clear from the expression on his face that he didn't want to just leave her. But what else was he supposed to say? He'd never known exactly how to help her, particularly given how little she seemed to want it.

Tess was still looking at them. She was furious now, displeased at being so easily ignored. She dropped her arms to her side and glared at them. Green energy was flickering at the tips of her fingers and her palms began to glow.

But she didn't scare Liz. She'd all but admitted that she would never kill them. She needed them alive. She needed that hatred.

Michael lingered for a moment, then nodded and turned away. Turned towards Liz and smiled. "Let's go inside," he agreed.

"You can't just… you can't…" Tess stammered, her tone oddly high-pitched. She grabbed at her head again, fingers pressing into her skin. Her palms were glowing again. "You're still in my head!"

Michael gave Liz an uneasy glance. "I don't like this," he said warily, eyes darting around nervously.

Liz swallowed anxiously and squeezed his hand tighter. She doubted Tess would be stupid enough to risk using her powers in broad daylight, particularly given their recent close call with the government. But the question wasn't her intelligence, it was her sanity.

Did she even realize what she was doing?

"Tess…?" Michael questioned. "Are you… alright?"

"Maybe we're doing this to her," Liz suggested. "Maybe being around us, thinking about us… maybe it is making her…" she gestured with her free hand towards Tess, "do that."

When she had first come into her powers, they had been tied to her emotions, and had erupted every time she got near Max. Because Max had been the most complicated, multifaceted, emotionally draining part of her life. It had taken fleeing to boarding school and then facing the possibility of Max dying for her to get enough control over her feelings towards him to stop destroying everything around her whenever he was in the room.

What if the same hypothesis held true for Tess?

Michael accepted this with a nod, and the two of them turned towards the motel.

The Liz paused and looked back. "Tess," she said, "…thank you."

"For what?" Tess demanded, her eyes filled with suspicion.

Liz hesitated, unsure how to respond. She wasn't entirely certain what it was she was thanking Tess for in the first place. She still hated the other girl, but that hatred didn't burn as bright as it had before. She was tired, and her heart felt as though it had been pulled apart and put back together so many times that she wasn't sure if it was even recognizable anymore. She didn't want to waste any more emotion on this.

She would never forgive Tess for what she had done to Alex, and what she nearly did to Max, Michael, and Isabel. But maybe the forgiveness didn't matter as much as she had once thought. Maybe it wasn't so much about forgiving and forgetting as it was about moving on.

She could move on.

And it was, ironically, Tess who had convinced her that she _wanted_ to.

So she finally cleared her throat and said, "For reminding me that I don't have to be like you."

* * *

><p>The world smelled like rain. It wasn't a smell she could describe to anyone else. It was something in the air, a damp scent that lingered every time the wind swept by.<p>

A few minutes after Liz and Michael had disappeared into the motel, Michael stepped out into the parking lot once more. Tess had expected it, because she knew perfectly well that Michael wasn't content to just walk away. He still had too much of himself wrapped up in the white room, and wrapped up in her.

The colors of his clothing were muted. The entire world was muted. The sky had been a constant gray for as long as she could remember, even though she knew it was a bright blue.

"I can't help you," Michael said flatly, stopping in front of her.

The world kept changing on her. It had changed during her stay in the white room, and it was changing now. It kept spinning, and she felt as though she was stuck. Left behind.

Again.

"I want to," Michael continued. "I do. I just… I can't. I don't know how. I don't think you know how I could help you, either. And I think… I think that was one of the hardest things I've had to come to terms with in a while."

She looked at him.

Really looked at him.

At the lines etched into his skin, at the shadows underneath his eyes, and the haunting expression of loss only partially hidden behind the façade of composure that he wore.

"I have to protect myself and I have to protect Liz," Michael continued, not waiting to see if she would say anything. She doubted she had any lines in this dialogue, anyway. It was his soliloquy, it was something he needed to say.

So she listened.

"If you come after us, if you try to hurt us, I _will_ fight you. If you leave me no other option, I will kill you. But I will never turn you over to the government."

"You did before," she said hoarsely.

"And we were wrong," Michael replied without hesitation. "But this isn't about what happened then. This is about now. And I need you to understand this, Tess. I need you to understand that I won't let you hurt Liz."

She smiled maliciously. "Do you really think you can stop me?"

He stared at her, his expression hard and unemotional. "Yes."

She didn't understand this new world. Didn't understand her place in it. They were still in her head and she wanted them to leave, but it seemed like there was nothing anyone could do to make that happen.

The ties just wouldn't break.

She wanted to scratch at her skin, to dig them out. Her hands moved towards her hair, fingers clutching at the blonde strands.

Michael caught her hands, stopped her.

"Don't," he said.

She wondered vaguely if he even understood what she was trying to do. Did he get that this was an exorcism, that all she wanted was to get him out of her head?

She didn't dream as much anymore. No more nightmares of white and green eyes and pain. Maybe that was progress.

She pulled away from Michael. "You're a killer, too," she said. "This is war. We're all killers."

"But I'm not like them, Tess," Michael said, clearing his throat and looking away from her. "I'm not like the government."

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" she asked.

"Both," Michael replied. "And the thing is... I don't think you're like them, either." He paused, cleared his throat, then said, "And you're right, people cared about the government agents I killed in this war, too. So maybe we really aren't as different as I wanted to believe. But we're not the men from the white room."

She wanted to hurt him.

Michael was standing in front of her, and she couldn't breathe. The world was pressing in on her from all sides, and she wanted nothing more than to make him hurt, to make him feel what she felt. She wanted to make him suffer and laugh in his face while she did so.

Why couldn't she do that? Why couldn't she hurt him? Why couldn't she find the anger and hatred and fury that had kept her sane for so long?

"I hope you find whatever it is you need. I hope you... I hope you find peace," Michael added. "But I think you're the only one who can help you find it."

Tess stared at him.

"I'm going inside now," he said and she watched in silence as he left her standing in the parking lot and rejoined Liz inside the motel.

* * *

><p>Michael felt his gaze drawn towards the window again.<p>

He had yet to actually get off the bed and cross the small motel room to look out the window, but it didn't stop him from feeling drawn in that direction. He could stop his eyes from flicking over to the glass, couldn't stop him body from continually shifting on the bed as though trying to convince him to get up.

Liz was taking a shower in the bathroom. There would be no one to see if he did decide to get up and look out the window. There would be no questions, no resulting conversation, no uneasy navigating of potentially dangerous topics.

But after their argument three days ago, the last thing he wanted to do was sneak around behind Liz's back. They had reached an understanding, but it was tentative, fragile. He didn't want it to break.

He didn't want to run the risk of losing Liz again.

He flopped back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Liz's suitcase lay next to him on the bed, half open. Some of her clothing had spilled out onto the covers, and beneath the clothing he could see the corner of her journal sticking out.

He frowned thoughtfully. He couldn't recall having seen Liz write in the journal for weeks now.

The sound of the shower turning off in the bathroom pulled his attention away from the suitcase and the journal. A moment later, the door to the bathroom opened and Liz appeared, her wet hair clinging to her neck and back, a towel wrapped around her slim form. She paused and smiled at him.

"Hey."

"Hey," he replied, sitting up again. There was a momentary silence, then he jerked his head towards the suitcase and said, "You brought your journal with you."

Liz shrugged. "There was too much in it to leave it behind."

"Yes, we've already established how… uh… dangerous… the journal can be," Michael agreed, his mind wandering back to the first – and only – time he had read her journal. Life had been so much simpler during their sophomore year of high school, even with the FBI and the unanswered questions about their origins.

Liz snorted in agreement, clearly thinking about the same incident.

"I haven't seen you write in it, though," Michael said. "Not… not in a while." He frowned, trying to remember if he'd seen her write in the journal at all since returning from the white room. Maybe once or twice, but…

Liz nodded. "Yeah. Haven't really felt like writing in a while." She walked over the suitcase and grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt. "You know, we haven't really talked about where we are going. We're just… driving."

"Maybe a big city," Michael said thoughtfully. Tess had been the one to point out the advantages of that. It was easier to disappear in a big city, easier to just blend into the crowd. It was likely why the Dupes had avoided attention for so long even though they used their powers in public all the time.

Although as far as Michael knew, none of them had done anything as stupid as healing someone in a crowded diner.

"Turn around," Liz instructed, and turned around on the bed, facing away from Liz as she quickly dropped the towel and pulled on her clothing.

"Small towns are nice, but the government found us once, they can do it again," Michael continued, staring at the wall. His gaze moved for a moment, gliding over the white pain and landing on the window.

"They can probably find us in a big city, too," Liz murmured. "They can probably find us anywhere."

"That's optimistic," Michael practically drawled.

Liz walked around the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress next to him. "A big city has its advantages, but if we've learned anything over the past several weeks, it's not to assume that we're safe anywhere." She paused for a moment, and Michael could see there was more that she wanted to say.

He took her hand, squeezing it tightly. "And small towns feel like Roswell."

"Yeah," she breathed.

He squeezed her hand again. The fact that it was too dangerous to contact anyone in Roswell that frequently, that it was possible the government was monitoring such calls, didn't bother Michael much because he didn't really have anyone he had left behind. Liz still had her parents, and if she could never see them again, it was clear that she at least wanted to feel close to them.

He would have liked to be able to give her that. But he also wanted to keep her alive, and he was fairly certain that their chances of survival were much better in a larger city.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then Liz leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder.

"I'm tired," she said softly.

"You used to write in your journal before bed," Michael muttered. "Max told me that once. You would reflect on the day."

Liz laughed quickly. "Did you talk about me a lot?"

Michael gave her a serious look and said, "Max did. Max always talked about you. You were the first thing on his mind in the morning and the last thing on his mind at night." He cleared his throat and looked down at their interlocked hands. "I miss him," he said gruffly.

"I miss Maria," Liz replied.

"I used to talk to her," Michael said. "After she had… after the attack. I used to… to talk to her. All the time."

Liz's lips quirked into a smile and she asked, "Did she answer?"

Michael rolled his eyes. "I'm not crazy, Parker," he said with a scowl. "I don't hallucinate dead people talking to me." He let go of her hand and reached up to run his fingers through his hair. "I just missed her, and I was dealing with so much after the white room and it helped to… to talk to her."

"Why did you stop?"

Michael shrugged. "Her absence got easier to bear and I… I guess I thought clinging to her would prevent from being able to move on. I couldn't bring her back, and not letting go would just… hurt me more." He didn't add that it became harder to talk to Maria as his feelings for Liz grew. He didn't add that talking to Maria while thinking about Liz felt like a betrayal of both.

He didn't add that he hadn't been able to talk to Maria about Tess because, even in death, Maria would never have understood.

"As long as we're having a mushy heart-to-heart," Michael said, "why don't you write in your journal anymore?" he asked. "And don't tell me that it's just because you haven't felt like it."

"I'm not that girl anymore," was Liz's reply. "It's in the past. It's over."

Michael laughed outright at that. "The one who felt a need to chronicle every thought, every action, every event as though she was a scientist observing the world around her? You're still that girl," he countered. "The past may be over, but you are most _definitely_ still that girl."

Liz didn't say anything, just stared at him, and he could tell from her expression that her reluctance had to do with more than just a feeling of change. He supposed he couldn't really blame her – he was trying to let go of the things that reminded him of Maria and Roswell and the life they'd had before, too.

He sighed. "You could always get a new journal. Start over," he offered.

Liz looked away from him, towards the window. "Is Tess still in the parking lot?"

"I don't know," Michael answered honestly. "It's been a while, though. I don't know why she would still be there."

"Who knows why Tess does anything anymore?" Liz murmured.

Michael got up and walked over to the window. The glass was streaked with moisture stains and slightly distorted, but it still offered a decent view of the parking lot and the road beyond. He scanned the area, searching for the blonde.

Tess was gone.

"She's not there," he said, glancing over at Liz. It was the answer they had both expected, even though neither had been willing to admit that. Tess' absence was no surprise, and the only question now was if she would reenter their lives again. Michael had made his peace with the fact that he couldn't help her - or, rather, he was still trying to make his peace with that, but he had at least accepted it. And he had accepted that his own safety - and Liz's safety - had to come first.

And Liz had accepted that Michael could never fully let go of his desire to help Tess, and that since he couldn't help her, he at least had to do whatever he could to make sure she didn't end up in the white room again.

Liz crossed to his side and looked out of the window also. Her gaze traveled over the parking lot once, before moving upwards, towards the night sky.

"What do we do?" she asked, and Michael wasn't sure if she meant in regards to Tess or their own plans for the future or the government that was still out there somewhere.

He supposed it didn't really matter. He took her hand in his, and gave the only answer he could.

"We survive."

* * *

><p>They were still fighting for their chance at happiness. They hadn't given up.<p>

Tess didn't understand much of what had happened in that final confrontation, but she did understand that. Everything else about Michael and Liz was a mystery - and why couldn't she get them out of her head? Why did they keep tormenting her? Why couldn't she let them go? - but when Michael had stared Tess in the eyes and told her that he would protect Liz _no matter what_, she had believed him.

They were still fighting to be together.

It was starting to rain. The scent that the wind had carried had foretold this, and she wasn't surprised when the first drops of water hit her hair and splashed down her face, leaving tracks on her skin.

Liz had looked at her with scorn and with pity and those words - _I don't have to be like you_ - echoed in Tess' mind.

She wanted Liz to be like her. She wanted Liz to need the hate as much as she did. She wanted... no. She _needed_ it. She needed Liz to need the hatred, and she needed Liz to hate her.

She needed an emotion other than the despair and anguish and confusion that had been plaguing her since the white room. She needed some kind of interaction other than the voices in her head. She needed something that made sense, she needed relationships that she could define, and Liz was it.

Michael was a mystery to her. Michael had always been a mystery to her. But Liz...

Liz she had understood. Liz made sense.

Until now.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Michael had asked her that one time why she had made the choices she did, and she'd brushed off the question. But it was a question that she hadn't ever forgotten, even if she couldn't answer it. And Michael wasn't the first one to ask her for an explanation. Max had done that, in the pod chamber right before she left the planet, and Larek had done it when she'd met him on Antar.

And she'd been asking herself that question since the moment Alex's dead body hit the ground in her - in _Kyle's_ - bedroom.

The others were dead, too - and that thought still brought her absolute nothing. No pain, no glee... nothing. They were dead and she didn't even _care_. Only Alex's death mattered now, only the look in his eyes as she destroyed his mind, as her act of betrayal robbed him of his life. The others meant nothing, and her guilt and anguish was tied up in a boy she'd never cared about while he was living.

How had it ended up like this?

The rain grew heavier. It soaked her clothing, but she couldn't feel the cold. She couldn't feel the wet. She couldn't feel much of anything at all.

They were fighting for peace and happiness and survival and she felt like she was drowning, slowly suffocating underneath the weight of her past - both pasts. They were moving forward, moving on, and she was stuck, slowly spiraling towards hell, unable to save herself. And she wanted to hate them for their happiness and she wanted to hate them for the way they still stood together, despite everything, and she wanted to hate them for their near constant presence in her mind.

But the hatred was seeping through her grasp and disappearing.

They were moving on.

And she was still drowning.

She had no idea how to save herself. Michael had said it was up to her - her choice, her efforts. Nothing else would help her. He had said it like it was that simple, like all she had to do was make a decision and everything else would fall into place. And he said it with such confidence, such assurance - she couldn't help but wonder vaguely if he was right.

Or if he was just that naive.

She wondered if it even really mattered. Maybe she was past saving. Maybe she had been all along.

Whatever it was she was looking for now - salvation, redemption, peace... or revenge - it wasn't here. It wasn't in this place, it wasn't with Michael and Liz. They didn't have the answers. They couldn't do anything _for_ her, and she couldn't do anything _to_ them.

She walked along the highway, and the world smelled like rain.

* * *

><p><em>Today is August 7th, and I'm afraid the sun will fall from the sky like a giant ball of flames and destroy my world, burning it until there is nothing left but ashes and my own regrets. I'm a scientist, and I know this will never happen, at least not in my lifetime, but it does not stop the fear.<em>

_It is why I still climb out of bed each morning and make my way to the small balcony in the apartment. It is why I lean against the railing and stare up at the morning sky, watching the sun rise. I used to do this with Max. It was a tradition we started while on the run, to watch the sunrise. To remind ourselves that we had lived one more day, and that, despite everything, we still had a reason to rejoice. We were alive._

_Michael doesn't come with me. Sometimes I wish he would. Sometimes I want to drag him from the warmth of our bed and force him to stand by my side to watch the sun rise. I want him to understand that I don't hold on to this tradition as a way to hold on to Max. That I don't come out here every morning and wish that Max was by my side._

_I do wish Max was alive. But he isn't, and Michael is, and… and I love Michael._

_No, I don't think of Max when I am here. Or sometimes I do, but only with the melancholy of things lost. I loved him, too, but he is gone now, and life must go on._

_The sun still rises._

_That is why I am here. To see the sun rise. To know that it will not fall from the sky. That each day will still go on, that every night will always be followed by another day. That I am still alive._

_Sometimes I think I can't really be alive. That I died with the rest of them, but my mind hasn't realized it yet, and it has created an entire fake life separate from the reality of my bloodied body lying broken on the ground with all the others. Sometimes I am convinced that death has claimed me and this is purgatory. Limbo. I will be trapped here forever, or at least until I can come to terms with whatever unfinished business I might have left._

_But I am a scientist, and I know that I am alive, and I know that the sun will still rise._

_It always does._

_After Max died, I was so wrapped up in finding Michael that I barely gave myself time to grieve. And then, after I found Michael, he was falling apart and I had to put him back together and to worry about Tess and I didn't have time to do anything but survive. And so it wasn't until later that the grief came. Max was dead._

_And Maria. Isabel. Kyle._

_My world had fallen apart. The man I loved, the man who held my heart and my soul in his hands, the man who could take my breath away with nothing more than a brief look… he was dead. And with him, I had lost my family, my friends, everything that had mattered to me. And when Michael looked at me and said that what we had done to Tess was wrong, when I listened and agreed with him but couldn't feel the regret, it felt like I had lost my soul, too._

_It was all gone, and the crumbling remains of my life did not seem enough. How could I survive this when I didn't even know who I was anymore? What was left of me underneath it all?_

_There were moments when I couldn't imagine how death could be worse than this hell. But I was wrong then, because time passed and I remembered watching the sun rise with Max at my side and knowing that there would always be a new day. A new world. And I would have to face each day and each problem as it came._

_And this time, I would face them with Michael at my side._

_I think of Max, and I cry for what I have lost, for the pain that we caused each other, for the silly belief that our love could solve everything, could fix every problem, could surmount ever obstacle._

The Princess Bride_ is wrong. Death _can_ stop true love._

_But I am alive. And so is Michael._

_And Tess. She is alive, too. We don't know where she is or what she is doing, though she sent us a postcard from New York - God only knows how she knew which motel to send it to but I've stopped questioning her connection to us. There was a single sentence on the postcard, one that was clearly meant to be reassuring._

Don't worry, I'm not coming back.

_We are alive._

_And when Michael rolls over in bed and flops his arm over my chest in an awkward embrace, half-asleep and mostly unaware of what he is doing, I know that I am lucky. Because he is here, and he laughs at me when I am yelling at him and he rolls his eyes whenever I drone on about science, but he always listens and he always cares._

_That is why I come out to this small porch each morning and watch the sun rise. That is why I thank God every day that the sun does not fall from the sky and burn our world into nothing. Even though the government is still out there, even though the skins might never leave us alone, even though I still don't know if my soul is completely intact. I see the sun each morning, and I am grateful for it._

_Because I have learned._

_I am Liz Parker, and I know that I can survive._

* * *

><p>AN: The story turned out to be significantly longer than originally anticipated (my first outline had only five chapters), but we have finally reached the conclusion. Michael and Liz get closure and Tess gets... well, she gets a chance to move on, if she can.<p>

I hope you all enjoyed the story and thank you for sticking with me until the end!


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